The ordinary expression of old Max's face was not winning; and now, as he looked up with his grey eyebrows drawn into a shaggy frown, and his jaws clenched so as to hold the end of a string which he had just drawn into a knot round the parcel of sugar, he presented a countenance ill-calculated to reassure a stranger or invite his confidence. But Algy was not a stranger, and did not intend to bestow any confidence, so he came forward with the graceful self-possession which sat so well on him, and said, "How are you, Mr. Maxfield? I have not seen you for ever so long!" "It doesn't seem very long ago to me, since we spoke together," returned old Max, tugging at the string of his parcel. "You know I'm off to-morrow, Mr. Maxfield?" The old man shot a hard keen glance at him from beneath the shaggy eyebrows, and nodded. "I go by the early coach in the morning, so I must say all my farewells to-day." Maxfield gave a sound like a grunt, and nodded again. "It's a wonderful piece of luck, Lord Seely's taking me up so, isn't it?" "Ah! if he means to do anything for you in earnest. So far as I can learn, his taking you up hasn't cost him much yet." Algernon laughed frankly. "Not a bit of it, Mr. Maxfield!" he cried. "And, after all, why should he do anything that would cost him much, for a poor devil like me? No; the beauty of it is, that he can do great things for me which shall cost him nothing! He is hand and glove with the present ministry, and a regular big-wig at court, and all that sort of thing. The fact of my having good blood in my veins, and being called Ancram Errington, is no merit of mine, of course--just an accident; but it's a deuced lucky accident. I daresay Lord Seely is a stupid old hunks, but then he is Lord Seely, you see. I don't mind saying all this to you, Mr. Maxfield, because you know the world, and you and I are old friends." It was certainly rather hard on Lord Seely to be spoken of as a stupid old hunks by this lively young gentleman, who knew little more of him than of his great-grandfather, deceased a century ago. But his lordship did not hear the artless little speech, so it did not annoy him; whereas old Max did hear it, and it gratified him considerably for several reasons. It gratified him to be addressed confidentially as one who knew the world; it gratified him to be called an old friend by this relation of the great Lord Seely. And, oddly enough, whilst he was mentally bowing down before the aristocratic magnificence of that nobleman, it gratified him to be told that the bowing down was being performed to a "stupid old hunks," altogether devoid of that wisdom which had been so largely bestowed on himself, the Whitford grocer.