"Be shot if I know," said the serjeant. "It will be a serious thing for Charley, mind you, if he does get committed for trial--as Sir Turtle Kite has promised." "What an ill-conditioned, revengeful man that Sir Turtle Kite must be!" "There you are wrong, my lord. He is just the contrary: one of the sunniest-natured little men you can picture, and about as able upon the bench as my old wig would be if you stuck it there. The newspapers have been going in to him lately for his leniency, so I suppose he thinks he must make an example of somebody. One of the papers had a bantering article this morning, suggesting that Sir Turtle should open a luncheon-room at the court, and treat the delinquents who appeared before him to bottled stout and oysters. That article, I suspect, is the cause of his turning crusty today. Look here," added the serjeant, lowering his voice and catching hold of the other's button-hole, "what is there at the bottom of all this matter? Who was it that Charley made himself a scapegoat for? Do you know?" As it chanced, they were jostled just then by some one of the many passers-by in the busy street--nearly pushed off the causeway. Lord Acorn, forgetting his usual superlative equanimity, allowed himself to be put out by it, and so evaded an answer. "Nobody does know, that I can find out," said the serjeant, returning to the charge, and facing Lord Acorn, with whom he had long been on intimate terms: "and Charley makes a mystery of it. I suspect it was some one of those wild blades he has been hand-in-glove with lately--and that he won't betray him." "Ah, yes, no doubt," carelessly assented Lord Acorn, his face wearing a deeper tinge than ordinary. "I wonder where Howard is? Charley must be saved." "It will be of no use your seeing Howard, Lord Acorn--except for any odds and ends of information he might afford you. The affair is out of his hands now." "But it can't be out of Mr. Grubb's!" "Indeed it is. It is in Sir Turtle Kite's." "Could one do any good with _him?_" Serjeant Mowham laughed. "I can't say, one way or the other. You might try, perhaps. Don't say, though, that I recommended it." The peer smoothed his brow, smooth enough before to all appearance. How often do these smiling brows hide a heavy load of perplexity within! "As for me, I must be off," added the serjeant. "I've a consultation on for five o'clock at my chambers, and I believe five has struck." He bustled away, leaving Lord Acorn in the crowd. Thought is quick. That nobleman was saying to himself, "What if I _do_ see Sir Turtle?--who knows but I might come over him by persuasion? Wonder where he is to be found?" He glanced up and down Leadenhall Street, at its houses on this side and on that, as if, haply, he might discern the name. During this survey he found himself subjected to an increased amount of jostling, and became aware that the clerks were pouring out of the offices of Grubb and Howard.