"Yes; and the _other_ marriage has come off. Old Schröder is one flesh now with Miss Townshend; that's a nice thing to think of, isn't it?" "Ay, I heard of that too; saw it in the paper of course; but beyond that, one of the young fellows here, Pringle, had cards; he's a connexion, or something of the sort." "Yes; they've taken a thundering big house in Saxe-Coburg Square,--in the new South-Kensington district, you know,--and are coming out heavily. There's a dinner there on Thursday, to which I'm asked; and a reception afterwards. It's a bad time of year; but there _may_ be some new fillies trotted out, you know." "Ah! you've done nothing more in that matter, I suppose? no one on hand just now! no combination of money and beauty, as Jack Palmer says, when he rides with Schwarzchild into the City?" "None! I've had no chance; but I should think this wouldn't be a bad opening. They are a tremendously well-tinned set at Schröder's; and he's safe to ask no women who are not enormously ingotted. With such girls, unaccustomed to any thing but what was Paddington and is now Tyburnia, one might have a chance, for they've seen nothing decent yet, you know. Your stock-brokering gent is a hopeless beast!" And Mr. Beresford shrugged his shoulders, and then looked down at his feet, as though Capel Court lay beneath them. "You're going to the dinner?" asked Simnel. "Going, my dear fellow! if you had been staying for the last month, as I have, with Jim Coverdale, you wouldn't ask the question. No better fellow than Jim breathes, and there's always capital sport to be got at his place; but the cooking is something indescribably atrocious. One always feels inclined, when he asks you what you'd like for dinner, to use the old _mot_, and say, '_Chez vous, monsieur, on mange, mais on ne dîne pas_.' After a month's experience of Coverdale's cook, I am looking forward with eager anticipation to the performances of such an artist as Schröder will probably employ." "I should think," said Mr. Simnel, after a minute's pause--"I should think it probable that Mr. Townshend will be there." "First dinner after his daughter's marriage," said Beresford. "Duty, by Jove Of course he will." "If he is there, I want you to do me a favour," said Simnel, quietly. "And that is--?" asked Beresford, in whose ears the word 'favour' always rang with a peculiar knell. "A very slight one, and involving very little trouble to you; else, you may take your oath, I know you too well to expect you'd grant it," said Simnel, with some asperity. "No! I merely want you, in the course of conversation, and when you have fully secured Mr. Townshend's attention, to introduce, no matter how, the name of a firm--Pigott and Wells." "Pigott and Wells!" repeated Beresford, mechanically. "Pigott and Wells. Should he ask you any thing farther, you will remember that it is the name of a cotton firm in Combcardingham; and take care that it fits into your story. That's all!"