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amazedly" pardon me—I don't understand your Grace! you allude to the two executions, which I'm sorry to hear

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"Pho, sir! you are trifling! Believe me, this is a very awful moment to all persons involved in what has taken place!" replied the Duke, his voice quivering with emotion.

"Your grace will excuse me, but I really cannot comprehend you!

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"You soon shall, sir! I tell you, it may be a matter of infinite moment to yourself personally, Mr Gammon!"

"What does your grace mean?" enquired Gammon respectfully, but firmly-and throwing an expression of still greater amazement into his face.

"Mean, sir? By

! that you've killed my Lord Dreddlington and the Lady Cecilia," cried the Duke, in a very violent

manner.

"I wait to hear, as soon as your grace may condescend to explain," said Gammon calmly.

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Explain, sir? Why, I have already told and explained every thing!" replied the choleric Duke, who imagined that he really had done so.

"Your grace has told-has explained nothing what ever," said Gammon.

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Why, sir-I mean, what's this horrible story you've been telling my Lord Dreddlington about Mr Titmouse being-in plain English, sir-A BASTARD?"

If the Duke had struck at Gammon, the latter could not have started back more suddenly and violently than he did on hearing his grace utter the last word; and he remained gazing at the Duke with a face full of horror and bewilderment. The spectacle which he presented arrested the Duke's increasing excitement. He stared with amazement. 66 Why, sir, are we bothare we all—mad? or dreaming? or what has come to us?" "I think," replied Gammon, a little recovering from the sort of stupor into which the Duke's words had apparently thrown him, "it is I who have a better title than your grace to ask the question!-I tell Lord Dreddlington that Mr Titmouse is a bastard! Why, I can hardly credit my ears! Does my Lord Dreddlington say that I have told him so?"

"He does, sir!” replied the Duke fiercely.

"And what else may his lordship have said concerning me ?" enquired Gammon, with a sort of hopeless smile.

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By Heaven, sir, you mustn't treat this matter lightly!" said the Duke impetuously.

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May I ask your grace whether this is the matter mentioned in your grace's note, as of the

"It is, sir! it is!-and it's killed my Lord Dreddlingtonand also the Lady Cecilia!"

"What!" cried Gammon, starting and exhibiting increasing amazement" does her ladyship, too, say that I have told her

so ?"

"Yes, sir; she does!"

"What, Lady Cecilia!" echoed Gammon, really confounded. 'Well, sir-I think she did—”

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"Think, your grace!" interrupted Gammon, bitterly and reproachfully.

"Well, sir-certainly the fact is, I may be mistaken as to that matter. I was not present; but, at all events, my Lord Dreddlington certainly says you told him—and he's told Lady Cecilia -and it's killing her-it is, sir!- By Heavens, sir, I expect hourly to hear of both of their deaths!—And I beg to ask you, sir, once for all, have you ever made any such statement to my Lord Dreddlington ?"

"Not a syllable-never a breath of the sort in all my life!" replied Gammon boldly, and rather sharply, as if indignant at being pressed about so absurd a matter.

"What!—nothing of the sort? or to that effect ?" exclaimed the Duke with mingled amazement and incredulity.

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Certainly―certainly not!—But let me ask, in my turn, is the fact so? Does your grace mean to say that

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"No, sir," interrupted the Duke, but not speaking in his former confident tone-"but my Lord Dreddlington does!"

"Oh, impossible ! impossible!" cried Gammon, with an incredulous air—“Only consider for one moment-how could the fact possibly be so and I not know it! Why, I know every step of his pedigree!" The Duke drummed vehemently with his finger on the table, and stared at Gammon with the air of a man suddenly and completely nonplussed.

"Why, Mr Gammon, then my Lord Dreddlington must have completely lost his senses! He declares that you told him that such was the fact !-When and where, may I ask, did you first see him to-day?"

"About half-past eleven or twelve o'clock, when he called at my chambers in a state of the greatest agitation and excitement, occasioned by the announcement in this morning's paper of the sudden blow-up of the Artificial—"

“Good heaven! why, is that gone?" interrupted his grace, eagerly and alarmedly. "When? why ? how ?-By heaven, it's enough to turn any one's head!”

“Indeed it is, your grace. My Lord Dreddlington was the first from whom I heard any thing on the subject."

"It's very odd I didn't see the paragraph! Where was it? In the Morning Growl?"

“It was, your grace—it stated that Sir Sharper Bubble had suddenly absconded, with all the funds of

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“Oh, the villain! Why do you make such people chairmen, and treasurers, and so forth? How must the loss be made good? You really don't look sharp enough after people whom you put into such situations! Who the deuce is this fellow-this Sir Bubble Sharper, or Sir Sharper Bubble?"

"He was greatly respected in the City, or would not have been in the situation he was. Who could have suspected it?"

"And is the thing quite blown up? All gone?"

"Yes, I fear it is, indeed!” replied Gammon, shrugging his shoulders and sighing.

"Of course no one can be made liable-come the worst to the worst, eh?" enquired the Duke very anxiously, "beyond the amount of his shares? How's that, Mr Gammon ?"

"I devoutly trust not! Your grace sees it depends a good deal on the prominence which any one takes in the affair.”

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Egad! is that the principle? Then, I assure you, Mr Gammon, I have not, for my part, taken the least public part in the proceedings-"

"I am very happy to hear it, your grace! Nor have I-but very much fear that my Lord Dreddlington may have gone further a good deal

I

"I've several times warned him on the subject, I assure you!

By the way, there's that other affair, Mr Gammon, I hope-eh? -that the Gunpowder and Fresh Water

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"Good heavens, your grace! I hope all is right there-or I, for one, am a ruined man!" replied Gammon quickly.

"I-I-hope so too, sir. So Lord Dreddlington was a good deal shocked, eh, this morning?"

"Yes, indeed, he was-nay, most alarmingly excited! I was greatly alarmed on his account, directly I saw him."

"And is this Mr Titmouse-eh ?-involved in the thing?" "I really can't tell, your grace—his movements are somewhat eccentric-it's extremely difficult to discover or account for them! By the way, I recollect now that I did mention his name to Lord Dreddlington."

"Ah, indeed? What about?" interrupted his grace briskly.

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Why, I just heard that early this morning there would be one or two executions put into his house-he's been going on lately in a very wild way."

"Oh, he's a monstrous little-but was that all that passed between you and my Lord Dreddlington about him?"

"I will undertake to say," replied Gammon pausing, putting his finger to his lips, and trying to recollect" that that was the only mention made of his name, for soon after his lordship was seized with a fit," and Mr Gammon proceeded to give the Duke a very vivid and feeling description of it.

“What a singular hallucination his lordship must be labouring under, to make such an assertion concerning me as he appears to have made!" presently observed Gammon.

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Very!" replied the Duke gravely, still feeling serious misgivings on the subject; but what could he say or do further, after the solemn, the explicit, and repeated denials of Mr Gammon ? His grace then gave him an account of what he had heard as to the mode of Lord Dreddlington's seizure, and that of Lady Cecilia; and as he went on, Gammon quivered from top to toe, and it required all his extraordinary powers of self-command to conceal his excessive agitation from the Duke,

"By the way, where is Mr Titmouse?" enquired the Duke, as he rose, after saying that he was going on immediately to Grosvenor Square. “I have sent to Park Lane, and find that he has not been there since the morning."

VOL. III.

2 A

“I really don't know, I assure your grace. I have not seen him for several days! If his affairs are as seriously involved as your grace would intimate, he may probably be keeping out of the way."

"Do let me beg of you to take the trouble of enquiring after him to-morrow morning, Mr Gammon. He must be very much shocked to hear of the lamentable condition of Lady Cecilia!" "Indeed I will, I assure your grace: I only hope he may not have gone over to the Continent.'

"God bless my soul, but I hope not!" interrupted the Duke earnestly and added, after one or two other observations, “then I understand you as stating, Mr Gammon, that there is not the least pretence or foundation, in point of fact, for the representation which my Lord Dreddlington has made concerning you, with reference to Mr Titmouse-excuse me—is it so, upon your word of honour?"

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Upon my sacred word of honour!" replied Gammon steadfastly; and bowing to the Duke, took his leave, promising to call on his grace early on the morrow, and to make every exertion to see Mr Titmouse-whom Mr Gammon was now, indeed, devouringly anxious to see, and would have made almost any sacrifice to be enabled to fall in with him that very night. Good Heavens! how much now depended on Titmouse!—on the manner in which he would deal with such questions as would infallibly be asked of him by the Duke, and by any one else who might have heard of the rumour! In short, Gammon was quite distracted by doubts and fears, as he bent his way back to his chambers, not venturing, after what he had heard, to call in Grosvenor Square that evening, lest he should hear fatal news of either the Earl or Lady Cecilia— that is, of either or both of his victims! The next morning, the following announcement of the Earl's illness appeared in most of the morning papers, and created quite a sensation in society :— “SUDDEN AND ALARMING ILLNESS OF THE EARL OF DREDDLINGTON AND LADY CECILIA TITMOUSE.-Yesterday, while sitting in the office of his solicitor, the Earl of Dreddlington experienced an apopletic seizure of a most serious nature, and which, but for the most prompt and decisive medical treatment, must have proved immediately fatal. His lordship rallied sufficiently during the course of the day to admit of his being conveyed to his house

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