“No, gentlemen, and therefore, though a few silly fellows may shout for the Bill in the streets, I am sure that I shall have the whole of this influential company with me when I give you the toast of ‘Our Ancient Constitution, Our Chartered Rights, Our Vested Interests!’ May the Bill that assails them be defeated by the good sense of a sober and united people! May those who urge it and those who support it—rogues where they are not fools, and fools where they are not rogues—meet with the fate they deserve! And may we be there to see! Gentlemen,” he continued, raising his hand for silence, “in the absence upon pressing business of our beloved High Steward, the model of an English gentleman and the pattern of an English landlord, I beg to couple this toast”—here the Sergeant’s sharp black eyes fixed themselves suddenly on his opposite neighbour—“with the name of his kinsman, Mr. Arthur Vaughan!” “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” The room shook with the volume of applause, the tables trembled. And through it all Arthur Vaughan’s heart beat hard, and he swallowed nervously. He was caught. Whether the Sergeant knew it or not, he was trapped. From the beginning of the speech he had had his misgivings. He had listened anxiously; and though he had lost nothing, though one half of his mind had followed the speaker’s thread, the other half had scanned the prospect feverishly, weighed the chances of escape, and grown chill with the fear of what was coming. If he had only withdrawn in time! If he had only—— “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” They were pounding the table with fist and glass, and looking towards him—two long rows of flushed, excited, tipsy faces. Some were drinking to him. Others were scanning him curiously. All were waiting. He leant forward. “I don’t wish to speak,” he said, addressing the Sergeant in a troubled voice. “Call on some one else, if you please.” But “Impossible, sir!” White, surprised by his evident nervousness, answered. He had thought Vaughan anything but a shy person. “Impossible, sir!” “Get up! Get up!” cried the Squire, his neighbour, laying a jocund hand on him and trying to lift him to his feet. But Vaughan resisted; his throat was so dry that he could hardly frame his words. “I don’t wish to speak,” he muttered. “I don’t agree——” “Say what you like, my dear sir!” the Sergeant rejoined blandly, but with a gleam of amusement in his eyes. He had had his doubts of Master Vaughan ever since he had caught him on his way to the Chancellor: now he thought that he had him pinned. He did not suppose that the young man would dare to revolt openly. “Yes, sir, you must get up,” said White, who had no suspicion that his hesitation arose from any cause but shyness. “Anything will do.”