As Sewell awoke, it was already evening. Fatigue and anxiety together had so overcome him that he slept like one drugged by a narcotic; nor did he very quickly recall on awakening how and wherefore he had not been to bed. His servant had left two letters on his table while he slept, and these served to remind him of some at least of the troubles that last oppressed him. One was from his law-agent, regretting that he could not obtain for him the loan he solicited on any terms whatever, and mildly suggesting that he trusted the Colonel would be prepared to meet certain acceptances which would fall due in the coming week. The other was from a friend whom he had often assisted in moments of difficulty, and ran:—

“Dear S.,—I lost two hundred last night at pool, and, what's worse, can't pay it. That infernal rule of yours about prompt payment will smash us both,—but it's so like you! You never had a run of luck yet that you didn't do something that turned against you afterwards. Your clever rule about the selling-stakes cost me the best mare I ever had; and now this blessed stroke of your genius leaves me in doubt whether to blow my brains out or start for Boulogne. As Tom Beecher said, you are a 'deuced deal too 'cute to prosper.' If I have to cross the water, I suspect you might as well come with me.—Yours,

“Dick Vaughan.”

Sewell tore the note up into the smallest fragments, muttering savagely to himself the while. “I'll be bound,” said he, “the cur is half consoled for his mishap by seeing how much worse ruin has befallen me,—What is it, Watkin? What do you want?” cried he to his servant, who came hastily into the room.

“His Lordship has taken a bad turn, sir, and Mrs. Sewell wants to see you immediately.”

“All right! Say I'm coming. Who knows,” muttered he, “but there's a chance for me yet?” He turned into his dressing-room and bathed his temples and his head with cold water, and, refreshed at once, he ascended the stairs.

“Another attack has come on. He was sleeping calmly,” said Mrs. Sewell as she met him, “when he awoke with a start, and broke out into wild raving. I have sent for Beattie; but what is to be done meanwhile?”

“I 'm no doctor; I can't tell you.”

“Haire thinks the ice ought to be applied; the nurse says-a blister or mustard to the back of the neck.”

“Is he really in danger?—that's the question.”

“I believe so. I never saw him so ill.”

“You think he's dying?” said he, fiercely, as though he would not brook any sort of equivocation; but the coarseness of his manner revolted her, and she turned away without reply. “There's no time to be lost,” muttered Sewell, as he hastened downstairs. “Tell George I want the carriage to the door immediately,” said he; and then, entering his own room, he opened his writing-desk, and, after some search, came upon a packet, which he sealed and addressed.

“Are you going for Beattie?” asked Mrs. Sewell, as she appeared at the door; “for Haire says it would be better to fetch some one—any one—at once.”

“I have ordered the carriage. I 'll get Lysaght or Adams-if I should not find Beattie; and mind, if Beattie come while I am away, detain him, and don't let him leave this till I return. Do you mind me?”

“Yes; I 'll tell him what you say.”

“Ay, but you must insist upon his doing it. There will be all sorts of stories if he should die—”

“Stories? what do you mean by stories?” cried she, in alarm.

“Rumors of neglect, of want of proper care of him, and such-like, which would be most insulting. At all events, I am resolved Beattie should be here at the last; and take care that he does not leave. I 'll call at my mother's too; she ought to come back with me. We have to deal with a scandal-loving world, and let us leave them as little to fall foul of as may be.” All this was said hurriedly, as he bustled about the room, fussy and impatient, and with an eagerness to be off which certainly surprised her.

“You know where to find these doctors,—you have their addresses?” asked she.

“George knows all about them.”

“And William does, at all events.”

“I'm not taking William. I don't want a footman with a brougham. It is a light carriage and speedy cattle that are needed at this moment; and here they come. Now, mind that you keep Beattie till I come back; and if there be any inquiries, simply say the Chief Baron is the same as yesterday.”

“Had I not better consult Dr. Beattie?”

“You will do as I tell you, Madam,” said he, sternly. “You have heard my directions; take care that you follow them. To Mr. Lysaght's, George—no, first to Dr. Beattie's, Merrion Square,” cried he, as he stepped into the carriage, “and drive fast.”

“Yes, sir,” said the coachman, and started at once. He had not proceeded more than half-way down the avenue, however, when Sewell, leaning out of the window, said, “Don't go into town, George; make for the Park by the shortest cut you can, the Secretary's Lodge.”

“All right, sir; the beasts are fresh. We 'll be there in thirty minutes.” True to his word, within the half-hour the horses, white with sweat and flanking like racero, stood at the door of the Secretary's Lodge. Four or five private carriages and some cabs were also at the door, signs of a dinner-party which had not yet broken up.

“Take this card in to Mr. Balfour, Mr. Wells,” said he to the butler, who was an old acquaintance, “and say I want one minute in private with him,—strictly private, mind. I 'll step into the library here and wait.”

“What's up, Sewell? Are you in a new scrape, eh?” said Balfour, entering, slightly flushed with wine and conversation, and half put out by the interruption.

“Not much of a scrape,—can you give me five minutes?”

“Wells said one minute, and that's why I came. The Castledowns and Eyres and the Ashes are here, and the Langrish girls, and Dick Upton.”

“A very choice company, for robbing you of which even for a moment I owe every apology, but still my excuse is a good one. Are you as anxious to promote your Solicitor-General as you were a week or two ago?”

“If you mean Pemberton, I wish he was—on the Bench, or in Abraham's bosom—I don't much care which, for he is the most confounded bore in Christendom. Do you come to tell me that you'll poison him?”

“No; but I can promote him.”

“Why—how—in what way?”

“I told you a few days ago that I could manage to make the old man give in his resignation; that it required some tact and address, and especially the absence of everything like menace or compulsion.”

“Well, well, well—have you done it—is it a fact?”

“It is.”

“I mean, an indisputable, irrevocable fact,—something not to be denied or escaped from?”

“Just so; a fact not to be denied or escaped from.”

“It must come through me, Sewell, mind that. I took charge of the negotiation two years ago, and no one shall step in and rob me of my credit. I have had all the worry and fatigue of the transaction, and I insist, if there be any glory in success, it shall be mine.”

“You shall have all the glory, as you call it. What I aspire to is infinitely less brilliant.”

“You want a place—hard enough to find one—at least to find something worth having. You 'll want something as good as the Registrarship, eh?”

“No; I'll not pester you with my claims. I'm not in love with official life. I doubt if I am well fitted for it.”

“You want a seat in the House,—is that it?”

“Not exactly,” said Sewell, laughing; “though there is a good stroke of business to be done in private bills and railway grants. My want is the simplest of all wants,—money.”

“Money! But how am I to give you money? Out of what fund is it to come? You don't imagine we live in the old days of secret-service funds, with unlimited corruption to back us, do you?”

“I suspect that the source from which it is to come is a matter of perfect indifference to me. You can easily squeeze me into the estimates as a special envoy, or a Crown Prosecution, or a present to the Emperor of Morocco.”

“Nothing of the kind. You are totally in error. All these fine days are past and gone. They go over us now like a schedule in bankruptcy; and it would be easier to make you a colonial bishop than give you fifty pounds out of the Consolidated Fund.”

“Well, I 'd not object to the Episcopate if there was some good shooting in the diocese.”

“I 've no time for chaff,” said Balfour, impatiently. “I am leaving my company too long, besides. Just come over here to-morrow to breakfast, and we 'll talk the whole thing over.”

“No, I 'll not come to breakfast; I breakfast in bed: and if we are to come to any settlement of this matter, it shall be here and now.”

“Very peremptory all this, considering that the question is not of your retirement.”

“Quite true. It is not my retirement we have to discuss, but it is, whether I shall choose to hand you the Chief Baron's, which I hold here,”—and he produced the packet as he spoke,—“or go back and induce him to reconsider and withdraw it. Is not that a very intelligible way to put the case, Balfour? Did you expect such a business-like tone from an idle dog like me?”

“And I am to believe that the document in your hand contains the Chief Baron's resignation?”

“You are to believe it or not,—that's at your option. It is the fact, at all events.”

“And what power have you to withhold it, when he has determined to tender it?”

“About the same power I have to do this,” said Sewell, as, taking up a sheet of note-paper from the table, he tore it into fragments, and threw them into the fire. “I think you might see that the same influence by which I induced him to write this would serve to make him withhold it. The Judge condescends to think me a rather shrewd man of the world, and takes my advice occasionally.”

“Well, but—another point,” broke in Balfour, hurriedly. “What if he should recall this to-morrow or the day after? What if he were to say that on reconsideration he felt unwilling to retire? It is clear we could not well coerce him.”

“You know very little of the man when you suggest such a possibility. He 'd as soon think of suicide as doubt any decision he had once formally announced to the world. The last thing that would ever occur to him would be to disparage his infallibility.”

“I declare I am quite ashamed of being away so long; could n't you come down to the office to-morrow, at your own hour, and talk the whole thing over quietly?”

“Impossible. I 'll be very frank with you. I lost a pot of money last night to Langton, and have n't got it to pay him. I tried twenty places during the day, and failed. I tossed over a score of so-called securities, not worth sixpence in a time of pressure, and I came upon this, which has been in my hands since Monday last, and I thought, Now Balfour would n't exactly give me five hundred pounds for it, but there's no reason in life that he might not obtain that sum for me in some quarter. Do you see?”

“I see,—that is, I see everything but the five hundred.”

“If you don't, then you'll never see this,” said Sewell, replacing it in his pocket.

“You won't comprehend that I've no fund to go to; that there 's no bank to back me through such a transaction. Just be a little reasonable, and you 'll see that I can't do this out of my own pocket. It is true I could press your claim on the party. I could say, what I am quite ready to say, that we owe the whole arrangement to you, and that, especially as it will cost you the loss of your Registrarship, you must not be forgotten.”

“There's the mistake, my dear fellow. I don't want that. I don't want to be made supervisor of mad-houses, or overlooker of light-ships. Until office hours are comprised between five and six o'clock of the afternoon, and some of the cost of sealing-wax taken out in sandwiches, I don't mean to re-enter public life. I stand out for cash payment. I hope that's intelligible.”

“Oh, perfectly so; but as impossible as intelligible.”

“Then, in that case, there 's no more to be said. All apologies for having taken you so long from your friends. Good-night.”

“Good-night,” said Balfour. “I 'm sorry we can't come to some arrangement. Good-night.”

“As this document will now never see the light, and as all action in the matter will be arrested,” said Sewell, gravely, “I rely upon your never mentioning our present interview.”

“I declare I don't see why I am precluded from speaking of it to my friends,—confidentially, of course.”

“You had better not.”

“Better not! better in what sense? As regards the public interests, or my personal ones?”

“I simply repeat, you had better not.” He put on his hat as he spoke, and without a word of leave-taking moved towards the door.

“Stop one moment,—a thought has just struck me. You like a sporting offer. I 'll bet you twenty pounds even, you 'll not let me read the contents of that paper; and I 'll lay you long odds—two hundred to one, in pounds—that you don't give it to me.”

“You certainly do like a good thing, Balfour. In plain words, you offer me two hundred and twenty. I 'll be shot if I see why they should have higgled so long about letting the Jews into Parliament when fellows like you have seats there.”

“Be good enough to remember,” said Balfour, with an easy smile, “that I 'm the only bidder, and if the article be not knocked down to me there's no auction.”

“I was certain I'd hear that from you! I never yet knew a fellow do a stingy thing, that he had n't a shabbier reason to sustain it.”

“Come, come, there's no need of this. You can say no to my offer without a rudeness to myself.”

“Ay, that's all true, if one only had temper for it, but I have n't; and I have my doubts that even you would if you were to be tried as sorely as I am.”

“I never do get angry; a man shows his hand when he loses his temper, and the fellow who keeps cool can always look at the other's cards.”

“Wise precepts, and worth coming out here to listen to,” said Sewell, whose thoughts were evidently directed elsewhere. “I take your offer; I only make one condition,—you keep the negotiation a secret, or only impart it where it will be kept secret.”

“I think that's all fair. I agree to that. Now for the document”

“There it is,” said Sewell, as he threw the packet on the table, while he seated himself in a deep chair, and crossed his arms on his chest.

Balfour opened the paper and began to read, but soon burst forth with—“How like him—how like him!—'Less oppressed, indeed, by years than sustained by the conscious sense of long services to the State.' I think I hear him declaiming it.

“This is not bad: 'While at times afflicted by the thought, that to the great principles of the law, of which I had made this Court the temple and the sanctuary, there will now succeed the vague decisions and imperfect judgments of less learned expositors of justice, I am comforted by remembering that I leave behind me some records worthy of memory,—traditions that will not easily die.'”

“That's the modest note; hear him when he sounds the indignant chord,” said Sewell.

“Ay, here we have it: 'If I have delayed, my Lord, in tendering to you this my resignation, it is that I have waited till, the scurrilous tongues of slander silenced, and the smaller, but not less malevolent, whisperings of jealousy subdued, I might descend from the Bench amidst the affectionate regrets of those who regard me as the last survivor of that race which made Ireland a nation.' The liquor is genuine,” cried Balfour, laughing. “There's no disputing it, you have won your money.”

“I should think so,” was Sewell's cool reply. “He has the same knack in that sort of thing that the girl in the well-known shop in Seville has in twisting a cigarette.”

Balfour took out his keys to open his writing-desk, and, pondering for a moment or two, at last said, “I wish any man would tell me why I am going to give you this money,—do you know, Sewell?”

“Because you promised it, I suppose.”

“Yes; but why should I have promised it? What can it possibly signify to me which of our lawyers presides in Her Majesty's Irish Exchequer? I 'm sure you 'd not give ten pounds to insure this man or that, in or out of the Cabinet.”

“Not ten shillings. They 're all dark horses to me, and if you offered me the choice of the lot, I 'd not know which to take; but I always heard that you political fellows cared so much for your party, and took your successes and failures so much to heart, that there was no sacrifice you were not ready to make to insure your winning.”

“We now and then do run a dead-heat, and one would really give something to come in first; but what's that?—I declare there 's a carriage driving off—some one has gone. I 'll have to swear that some alarming news has come from the South. Good-night—I must be off.”

“Don't forget the cash before you go.”

“Oh, to be sure, here you are—crisp and clean, ain't they? I got them this morning, and certainly never intended to part with them on such an errand.”

Sewell folded up the notes with a grim smile, and said, “I only wish I had a few more big-wigs to dispose of,—you should have them cheap; as Stag and Mantle say, 'articles no longer in great vogue.'”

“There's another departure!” cried Balfour. “I shall be in great disgrace!” and hurried away without a “goodbye.”