impossible conditions; and then
they talked away about other matters. You know his boastful way, and how
little reliance can be laid on any statement he makes; but certain it
is, Collier came away fully impressed with the flourishing condition
of his present fortune, his intimacy with great people, and his actual
influence with men in power. That this is not entirely fabulous I have
just received a most disagreeable proof. When Collier rose to go away,
he said, 'By the way, you occasionally see Nick Holmes; well, just give
him a hint to set his house in order, for they are going to stop payment
of that Irish pension of his. It appears, from some correspondence
of Lord Cornwallis that has just turned up, Nick's pension was to be
continued for a stated term of years, and that he has been in receipt of
it for the last six years without any right whatever. It is very hard on
Nick,' said he, 'seeing that he sold himself to the devil, not at least
to be his own master in this world. I 'm sorry for the old dog on family
grounds, for he is at least one of my father-in-laws.' I quote his words
as Collier gave them, and to-day I have received a Treasury order to
forward to the Lords a copy of the letter or warrant under which I
received my pension. I mean simply to refer them to my evidence on
Shehan's trial, where my testimony hanged both father and son. If this
incident shows nothing else, it demonstrates the amount of information
he has of what is doing or to be done in Downing Street As to the
pension, I 'm not much afraid; my revelations of 1808 would be worse
than the cost of me in the budget.

"If I find that nothing can be done with Ludlow, I don't think I shall
remain here longer, and the chances are that I shall take a run as far
as Baden, and who says not over the Alps after? Don't be frightened,
dear Loo, we shall meet at the same _table d'hote_, drink at the same
public spring, bet on the same card at _rouge-et-noir_, and I will never
betray either of us. Of your Heathcotes I can learn next to nothing.
There was a baronet of the name who ruined himself by searches after a
title--an earldom, I believe--and railroad speculations, but he died, or
is supposed to have died, abroad. At all events, your present owners of
the name keep a good house, and treat you handsomely, so that there
can be no great mistake in knowing them. Sufficient for the day is the
evil--as the old saying is; and it is a wise one if we understood h