. Dix.

"Let him wait," said I, greatly disturbed.

"Show him up!" said my Lord, peremptorily.

"No, no!" I protested; "he can wait. We shall have no business now."

But Banks was gone. And I found out, long afterward, that it was put up
between them.

The agent swaggered in with that easy assurance he assumed whenever he
got the upper hand. He was the would-be squire once again, in top-boots
and a frock. I have rarely seen a man put out of countenance so easily
as was Mr. Dix that morning when he met his Lordship's fixed gaze from
the arm-chair.

"And so you are turned Jew?" says he, tapping his snuffbox. "Before you
go ahead so fast again, you will please to remember, d--n you, that Mr.
Carvel is the kind that does not lose his friends with his fortune."

Mr. Dix made a salaam, which was so ludicrous in a squire that my Lord
roared with laughter, and I feared for his wound.

"A man must live, my Lord," sputtered the agent. His discomfiture was
painful.

"At the expense of another," says Comyn, dryly. "That is your motto in
Change Alley."

"If you will permit, Jack, I must have a few words in private with Mr.
Dix," I cut in uneasily.

His Lordship would be damned first. "I am not accustomed to be thwarted,
Richard, I tell you. Ask the dowager if I have not always had my way. I
am not going to stand by and see a man who saved my life fall into the
clutches of an usurer. Yes, I said usurer, Mr. Dix. My attorney, Mr.
Kennett, of Lincoln's Inn, has instructions to settle with you."

And, despite all I could say, he would not budge an inch. At last I
submitted under the threat that he would never after have a word to say
to me. By good luck, when I had paid into Mr. Dix's hand the thousand
pounds I had received from Charles Fox, and cleared my outstanding
bills, the sum I remained in Comyn's debt was not greatly above seven
hundred pounds. And that was the end of Mr. Dix for me; when he had
backed himself out in chagrin at having lost his ten per centum, my
feelings got the better of me. The water rushed to my eyes, and I
turned my back upon his Lordship. To conceal his own emotions he fell to
swearing like mad.

"Fox will get you something," he said at length, when he was a little
calmed.

I told him, sadly, that my duty took me to America.

"And Dorothy?" he said; "you will leave her?"

I related the whole miserable story (all save the part of the locket),
for I felt that I owed it him. His excitement