Mr. Lysaght's, George-no, first to Dr. | years ago, and no one shall step in and rob Beattie's, Merrion Square," cried he, as he me of my credit. I have had all the worry stepped into the carriage, "and drive fast." and fatigue of the transaction, and I insist, "Yes, sir," said the coachman, and start- if there be any glory in success, it shall be ed at once. He had not proceeded more mine." 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." "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'm well fitted for it." "You want a seat in the House - is that it?" "Not exactly," said Sewell, laughing, "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 racers, 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." though there is a good stroke of business Wells," said he to the butler, who was an old to be done on private bills, and railway acquaintance," and say I want one minute grants. My want is the simplest of all wants 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 scrapeme five minutes?" can you give "Wells said one minute, and that's why I came. The Castledowns, and Eyres, and the Asbes 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 bosomI 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." how in what way?" "Why "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 - 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 passed 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 dio cese." "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 reconsider ation 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; couldn'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 haven'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 wouldn'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'm 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, 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. night." Good "Good-night," said Balfour. "I am sorry we can't come to some arrangement. Goodnight." 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 présent interview." "I declare I don't see why I am precluded from speaking of it to my friends, fidentially, of course." "You had better not." con "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 "I was certain I'd hear that from you! never yet knew a fellow do a stingy thing, that he hadn'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 haven'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. This resignation has reached you through the post; I do not appear in it in any shape." 66 "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. 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." "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 "Don't forget the cash, before you go." records worthy of memory - traditions that." Ob, to be sure, here you are crisp will not easily die."" and clean, an't they? I got them this morning, and certainly never intended to part with them on such an errand.” "That's the modest note-hear him when he sounds the indignant chord," said Sewell. 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 "good-bye." PART II. CHAPTER III. On the third day after Nina's visit to her aunt, Ziska Zamenoy came across to the Kleinseite on a visit to old Balatka. In the mean time Nina had told the story of her love to her father, and the effect on Balatka had simply been, that he had not got out of his bed since. For himself he would have cared, perhaps, but little as to the Jewish marriage, had he not known that those belonging to him would have cared so much. He had no strong religious prejudice of his own, nor indeed had he strong feeling of any kind. He loved his daughter, and wished her well; but even for her he had been unable to exert himself in his younger days, and now simply expected from her hands all the comfort which remained to him in this world. The priest he knew would attack him, and to the priest he would be able to make no answer. But to Trendell sohn, Jew as he was, he would trust in worldly matters, rather than to the Zamenoys; and were it not that he feared the Zamenoys, and could not escape from his close connection with them, he would have been half inclined to let the girl marry the Jew. Souchey, indeed, had frightened him on the subject when it had first been mentioned to him; and Nina coming with her own assurance so quickly after Souchey's suspicion, had upset him; but his feeling in regard to Nina had none of that bitter anger, no touch of that abhorrence which animated the breast of his sister-in-law. When Ziska came to him he was alone in his bedroom. Ziska had heard the news, as had all the household in the Windberg Gasse, and had come over to his uncle's house to see what he could do, by his own diplomacy, to put an end to an engagement which was to him doubly calamitous. "Uncle Josef," he said, sitting by the old man's bed, "have you heard what Nina is doing?" "What she is doing?" said the uncle. "What is she doing?" Balatka feared all the Zamenoys, down to Lotta Luxa; but he feared Ziska less than he feared any other of the household. "Have you heard of Anton Trendell | band for our Nina? You say nothing, uncle Josef." "What am I to say "You have heard of it, then? Why can you not answer me, uncle Josef? Have you heard that Trendellsohn has dared to ask Nina to be his wife?" "There is not so much of daring in it, Ziska. Among you all the poor girl is a beggar. If some one does not take pity on her, she will starve soon." "Take pity on her! Do not we all take pity on her?" “No,” said Josef Balatka, turning angrily against his nephew; "not a scrap of pity, not a morsel of love. You cannot rid yourself of her quite of her or me — and that is your pity." "You are wrong there." "Very well; then let me be wrong. I can understand what is before my eyes. Look round the house and see what we are coming to. Nina at the present moment has not got a florin in her purse. We are starving, or next to it, and yet you wonder that she should be willing to marry an honest man who has plenty of money." "But he is a Jew!" "Yes; he is a Jew. I know that." "Of course she does. Do you go home and eat nothing for a week, and then see whether a Jew's bread will poison you." "But to marry him, uncle Josef!" "It is very bad. I know it is bad, but what can I do? If she says she will do it, how can I help it? She has been a good child to me, a very good child; and am I to lie here and see her starve? You would not give to your dog the morsel of bread which she ate this morning before she went out." All this was a new light to Ziska. He knew that his uncle and cousin were very poor, and had halted in his love because he was ashamed of their poverty; but he had never thought of them as people hungry from want of food, or cold from want of clothes. It may be said of him, to his credit, that his love had been too strong for his shame, and that he had made up his mind to marry his cousin Nina, in spite of her poverty. When Lotta Luxa had called him a calf she had not inappropriately defined one side of his character. He was a good-looking, well-grown young man, not very wise, quickly susceptible to female influences, and gifted with eyes capable of convincing him that Nina Balatka was by far the prettiest woman whom he ever saw. But, in connection with such calf-like propensities, Ziska was endowed with something of his mother's bitterness and of his father's persistency; and the old Zamenoys did not fear but that the fortunes of the family would prosper in the hands of their son. And when it was known to Madame Zamenoy and to her husband Karil that Ziska had set his heart upon having his cousin, they had expressed no displeasure at the prospect, poor as the Balatkas were. "There is no knowing how it may go about the houses in the Kleinseite," Karil Zamenoy had said. "Old Trendellsohn gets the rent and the interest, but he has little or nothing to show for them-merely a written surrender from Josef, which is worth nothing." No hindrance, therefore, was placed in the way of Ziska's suit, and Nina might have been already accepted in the Windberg Gasse had Nina chosen to smile upon Ziska. Now Ziska was told that the girl he loved was to marry a Jew because she was starving, and the tidings threw a new light upon him. Why had he not offered assistance to Nina? It was not surprising that Nina should be so hard to him to him who had as yet offered her nothing in her poverty but a few cold compliments. "She shall have bread enough if that is what she wants," said Ziska. "Bread and kindness," said the old man. "She shall have kindness too, uncle Josef. I love Nina better than any Jew in Prague can love her." 66 Why should not a Jew love? I believe the man loves her well. Why else should he wish to make her his wife?" "And I love her well; -and I would make her my wife.". "You want to marry Nina!" "Yes, uncle Josef. I wish to marry Nina. I will marry her to-morrow-or, for that matter, to-day-if she will have me." "You! - Ziska Zamenoy." "I,- Ziska Zamenoy." "And what would your mother say ?" "Both father and mother will consent. There need be no hindrance if Nina will agree. I did not know that you were so badly off. I did not indeed, or I would have come to you myself and seen to it." Old Balatka did not answer for a while, having turned himself in his bed to think of the proposition which had been made to him."Would you not like to have me for a son-in-law better than a Jew, uncle Josef?" said Ziska, pleading for himself as best he knew how to plead "Have you ever spoken to Nina?" said the old man. love her, somehow I don't know how But I am ready to do so at once." "Ah, Ziska, if you had done it sooner!" "But is it too late? You say she has taken up with this man because you are both so poor. She cannot like a Jew best." "But she is true- so true!" "If you mean about her promise to Trendellsohn, Father Jerome would tell her in a minute that she should not keep such a promise to a Jew." "She would not mind Father Jerome." "And what does she mind? Will she not mind you?" "Me; yes, she will mind me, to give me my food." "Will she not obey you?" "How am I to bid her obey me? But I will try, Ziska." "You would not wish her to marry a Jew?" it." "No, Ziska; certainly I should not wish "And you will give me your consent?" "Yes, if it be any good to you." "It will be good if you will be round with her, telling her that she must not do such a thing as this. Love a Jew! It is impossi ble. As you have been so very poor, she may be forgiven for having thought of it. Tell her that, uncle Josef; and whatever you do, be firm with her." "There she is in the next room," said the father, who had heard his daughter's entrance. Ziska's face had assumed something of a defiant look while he was recommending firmness to the old man; but now that the girl of whom he had spoken was so near at hand, there returned to his brow the young calf-like expression with which Lotta Luxa was so well acquainted. "There she is, and you will speak to her yourself now," said Balatka. Ziska got up to go, but as he did so he fumbled in his pocket and brought forth a little bundle of bank-notes. A bundle of bank-notes in Prague may be not little, and yet represent very little money. When bank-notes are passed for twopence and become thick with use, a man may have a great mass of paper currency in his pocket without being rich. On this occasion, however, Ziska tendered to his uncle no twopenny notes. There was a note for five florins, and two or three for two florins, and perhaps half-a-dozen for a florin each, so that the total amount offered was sufficient to be of real importance to one so poor as Josef Balatka. "Well, no; not exactly to say what I have "This will help you awhile," said Ziska, said to you. When one loves a girl as I" and if Nina will come round and be a good |