"'Why,' said M'Flummery, 'what do you want with the key? You have the power at the end of eighteen months to break open the chest, and sell the plate, in default of payment; but you have no power over the plate till then. What, therefore, do _you_ want with the key?' "Snaps was beginning to say something; but M'Flummery stopped him short by saying, 'It is a bargain, or it is not, Mr. Snaps. I seal the chest, and keep the key.' "'Very well,' said Snaps, looking very much like a tiger that had suddenly lost sight of his dinner. "This was accordingly done, the bond signed, and the money handed over; and M'Flummery shook hands with my master, saying, "'Snaps, you are a cunning fellow!' "'Oh! my dear sir,' said my master, attempting to blush,--a feat, by the way, he never accomplished during his life that I know of. "'But I recollect,' continued M'Flummery, 'an old fisherman telling me, when I was a boy, that, deep as some fishes were in the sea, there were always others that swam just as deep. Good-b'ye, old Shylock! you shall have your bond.' So saying, he left. "I confess, this curious remark so astonished me that I quite forgot at the moment to ask for the fare of the coach. My master also seemed struck with the observation. "'What can he mean?' said Snaps; 'surely there is nothing wrong? Pooh! pooh! impossible! There is the chest, and possession is nine points of the law.' "'The first of the maxims, sir,' said I." Here Pounce paused, filled his pipe, and emptied his tumbler of grog into that depository where grog had gone in _goes_ for years and years. "Well!" said the president, "may I be spiflicated,--ay, and exspiflicated,--if you have not been humbugging us, Pounce, with a pretty piece of bam! What the deuce has all that you have said to do with the fact of the gentleman being hanged?" "Everything," cried Pounce. "I say _nothing_," said the president. "So do I," followed Shortcut. "Everything, I maintain," rejoined the lawyer's clerk; "_for_ six months afterwards his words came true." "Whose?" shouted several of the company. "M'Flummery's," said Pounce; "he proved himself as deep and deeper than Snaps. He was a _wide awake one_!" "WIDE AWAKE!" said the chairman; and down went the directing sceptre, with the customary clink. "Hear! hear! hear!" resounded through the room. "Yes," continued Pounce; "about six months after, and about five in the evening, a man came into the office, looking as like a turnkey or Bow-street runner as any of you gentlemen might ever have known in your life. He asked to see Mr. Snaps. "Just as I was preparing to give my master a hint by one of the writing-clerks to be on his guard, who should walk into the office but Snaps himself? "'I believe your name is Snaps?' said the hang-gallows-looking messenger. "Snaps was rather near-sighted, and it was getting dark, so that he did not see the winks and nods of the head I was giving him. "'My name _is_ Snaps,' he answered.