"Very dull, Mister Markworth, very dull! Why, sir, I haven't made a bob at pool for the last three weeks. Everybody's out of town, and those City fellows as comes in are afeared to bet a tizzy on a dead certainty. Can I do anything for you to-day, Mister Markworth?" "Not to-day, Joe; but I will want you shortly." "All right, sir, whenever you want me you've only got to speak, and I'm there." "I thought I could rely on you, Joe. The fact is, I shall want you to be a witness to a marriage between a lady and myself." "How much will you stand?" "I'll do the thing handsomely. I tell you what, I will give you a fiver after it's all over, because I shall want you to swear to it perhaps in evidence afterwards." "I'm your man, sir," replied the marker, with alacrity; "swear to anything for that sum. When is the little affair coming off?" "I can't say yet, Joe. Maybe in a week, maybe not for a month; but when I want you I shall write here and let you know. Mind! You must be ready at once to accompany me when I write for you." "I'm fly, sir," responded Joe, with a cunning movement of his left eyelid, more expressive than an ordinary wink. "I'll be ready any time; and perhaps, sir, as the business is partickler, it'll be worth more than a fiver, who knows?" "I shan't forget you, Joe; we won't quarrel about terms," answered Markworth, meaningly, and he then went away, for he had even more important arrangements to make. He paid a second visit to the dingy purlieus of Doctors Commons. This time not to the deed depository of the dead, but to the legal portals of Hymen, where Cupid sits enthroned on the bench, in all the majesty of the law, with a horsehair wig and a pair of clerical bands, to issue licenses to marry and for giving in marriage. It was now Friday, and the pic-nic was to come off at Bigton on the ensuing Tuesday, so Markworth determined that he would manage to get Susan Hartshorne away from The Poplars on that day, as he would be less liable to observation and detection; and taking her up to London, could have the marriage solemnised on the succeeding day. Tuesday, strange to say, was the very day, the 27th of August, according to the information of Miss Kingscott, retailed from the Family Bible, when the girl would be of legal age, one and twenty, and entitled to the free disposal of her money. He accordingly got a license made out without much trouble, by means of a little stretch of the imagination--called perjury in courts of law-- and the initiatory step for his design was taken. If everything went well, he would before that day week be the husband of Susan Hartshorne, and master of her twenty thousand pounds. He had well weighed every step in his programme; he had studied every possible consequence to himself; and he saw no reason to anticipate failure when everything pointed to success.