the Wandering Scotch Jew—if that is what you want."

"I am sorry to have troubled you," said Vincent, with his hand on the door.

"Stop a bit," said Mr. Fox, in his blunt and rather impertinent fashion. "You and I might chance to be of use to each other some day. I like to know the young men in politics. If I can do you a good turn, you'll remember it; or rather you won't remember it, but I can recall it to you, when I want you to do me one. Take a seat. Let's make a compact. When you are in the House, you'll want the judicious little paragraph sent through the provinces now and again: I can manage all that for you. Then you can give me an occasional tip: you're in ——'s confidence, people say—as much as any one can expect to be, that is. Won't you take a seat?—thanks, that will be better. I want to know you. I've already made one important acquaintanceship through your friend Mr. Bethune: it was quite an event when the great George Morris condescended to visit this humble office——"

"George Morris!" said Vincent.

"Perhaps you know him personally?" Mr. Fox said, and he went on in the most easy and affable fashion: "I may say without boasting that I am acquainted with most people—most people of any consequence: it is part of my business. But George Morris, somehow, I had never met. You may imagine, then, that when he came down here, to ask a few questions, I was precious glad to be of such service as I could; for I said to myself that here was just the man for me. Take a great scandal, for example—they do happen sometimes, don't they?—even in this virtuous land of England: very well—I go to George Morris—a hint from him—and there I am first in the field: before the old mummies of the London press have had time to open their eyes and stare."

Vincent had brought a chair from the side of the room, and was now seated: there was only the table, littered with telegrams and proofs, between those two.

"Did I understand you to say," he asked, with his eyes fixed on this man, "that George Morris had come to you to make inquiries about Mr. Bethune?"

"You understood aright."

"Who sent him?" demanded Vincent, abruptly—for there were strange fancies and still darker suspicions flying through his head.

But Courtnay Fox smiled.

"George Morris, you may have heard, was not born yesterday. His business is to get out of you what he can, and to take care you get nothing out of him. It was not likely he would tell me why he came making these inquiries—even if I had cared to ask, which I did not."

"You told him all you knew, of course, about Mr. Bethune?" Vincent went on, with a certain cold austerity.

"I did."

"And how much more?"

"Ah, very good—very neat," the spacious-waisted journalist exclaimed with a noisy laugh. "Very good indeed. But look here, Mr. Harris, if the great solicitor was not born yesterday, you were—in a way; and so I venture to ask you why you should take such an interest in Mr. Bethune's affairs?"

Vincent answered him without flinching.

"Because, amongst other things, certain lies have been put in circulation about Mr. Bethune, and I wished to know where they arose. Now I am beginning to guess."

For an instant Mr. Courtnay Fox seemed somewhat disconcerted; but he betrayed no anger.

"Come, come," said he, with an affectation of good humour, "that is a strong word. Morris heard no lies from me, I can assure you. Why, don't we all of us know who and what old George Bethune is! He may flourish and vapour successfully enough elsewhere; but he doesn't impose on Fleet-street; we know him too well. And don't imagine I have any dislike towards your venerable friend; not the slightest; in fact, I rather admire the jovial old mountebank. You see, he doesn't treat me to too much of his Scotch blague; I'm not to the manner born; and he knows it. Oh, he's skilful enough in adapting himself to his surroundings—like a trout, that takes the colour of the pool he finds himself in; and when he gets hold of a Scotchman, I am told his acting of the rugged and manly independence of the Scot—of the Drury Lane Scot, I mean—is splendid. I wonder he doesn't go and live in Edinburgh. They take things seriously there. They might elevate him into a great position—make a great writer of him—they're in sore need of one or two; and then every now and again he could step out of his cloud of metaphysics, and fall on something. That's the way the Scotchmen get hold of a subject; they don't take it up as an ordinary Christian would; they fall on it. We once had an English poet called Milton; but Masson fell on him, and crushed him, and didn't even leave us an index by which to identify the remains. Old Bethune should go back to Scotland, and become the Grand Lama of Edinburgh letters: it would be a more dignified position than cadging about for a precarious living among us poor southrons."

Vincent paid but small heed to all this farrago: he was busily thinking how certain undoubted features and circumstances of old George Bethune's life might appear when viewed through the belittling and sardonic scepticism of this man's mind; and then again, having had that hue and shape conferred upon them, how would they look when presented to the professional judgment of such a person as Mr. George Morris?

"The Scotch are the very oddest people in all the world," Mr. Fox continued, for he seemed to enjoy his own merry tirade. "They'll clasp a stranger to their bosom, and share their last bawbee with him, if only he can prove to them that he, too, was born within sight of MacGillicuddy's Reeks——"

"MacGillicuddy's Reeks are in Ireland," said Vincent.

"Well, MacGillicuddy's Breeks—no, that won't do; they don't wear such things in the north. Any unpronounceable place—any kind of puddle or barren rock: to be born within sight of that means that you own everything of honesty, and manliness, and worth that's going—yes, worth—worth is a sweet word—manly worth—it is the prerogative of persons who have secured the greatest blessing on earth, that of being born north of the Tweed. Now, why doesn't old George Bethune go away back there; and wave his tartan plaid, and stamp, and howl balderdash, and have monuments put up to him as the White-haired Bard of Glen-Toddy? That surely would be better than hawking bogus books about London and getting subscriptions for things that never appear; though he manages to do pretty well. Oh, yes, he does pretty well, one way and another. The cunning old cockroach—to take that girl around with him, and get her to make eyes at tradesmen, so as to swindle them out of pounds of tea!"

But at this a sudden flame seemed to go through the young man's brain—and unhappily he had his stick quite close by. In an instant he was on his feet, his right hand grasping the cane, his left fixed in the coat-collar of the luckless journalist, whose inert bulk he was attempting to drag from the chair.

"You vile hound!" Vincent said with set teeth—and his nostrils were dilated and his eyes afire, "I have allowed you to insult an old man—but now—now you have gone too far. Come out of that—and I will break every bone in your body——!"

Down came the stick; but by a fortunate accident it caught on the back of the