"I know nothing of the kind," said the Saxon, commencing another cigar. "I look to the matter of employment, and have nothing to do with the character of my clients, beyond ascertaining their means of liquidating my account. The committee required the assistance of a first-rate engineer, and I flatter myself they could hardly have made a more unexceptionable selection. But what's the use of looking sulky about it? You can't help yourself; and, after all, what's the amount of your loss? A parcel of pound-notes that would have lain rotting in the bank had you not put them into circulation! Cheer up, Fred, you've made at least one individual very happy. Glanders is going it in New York. I shouldn't be surprised if half your deposit money is already invested in mint-juleps." "It is very easy for you to talk, Mr Cutts," said I, with considerable acrimony. "Your account, at all events, appears to have been paid. Doubtless you looked sharply after that. I cannot help putting my own construction upon the conduct of a gentleman who makes a direct profit out of the misfortunes of his friends." "You affect me deeply," said Cutts, applying himself diligently to the decanter; "but you don't drink. Do you know you put me a good deal in mind of Macready? Did you ever hear him in Lear, 'How sharper than a serpent's thanks it is To have a toothless child?'" You're remarkably unjust, Fred, as you will acknowledge in your cooler moments. I am hurt by your ingratitude--I am," and the sympathizing engineer buried his face in the folds of a Bandana handkerchief. I knew, by old experience, that it was of no use to get into a rage with Cutts. After all, I had no tenable ground of complaint against him; for the payment of the deposit money was my own deliberate act, and it was no fault of his that the shares were not issued at a premium. I therefore contrived to swallow, as I best could, my indignation, though it was no easy matter. Seven hundred and fifty pounds is a serious sum, and would have gone a long way towards the furnishing of a respectable domicile. I believe that Cutts, though he never allowed himself to exhibit a symptom of ordinary regret, was internally annoyed at the confounded scrape in which I was landed by following his advice. At all events he soon ceased comporting himself after the manner of the comforters of Job, and finally undertook to look after my interest in case any fragment of the deposits could be rescued from the hands of the Philistines. I have since had a letter from him with the information that he has recovered a hundred pounds--a friendly exertion which shall be duly acknowledged so soon as I receive a remittance, which, however, has not yet come to hand.