He stared at me so fiercely that I could scarce help laughing. Then he laughed at himself, and said, "All right, by-and-by. You go and see if Jemmy Nickols has heard anything. I can tell you one piece of good news. I told you what I was in London about. It has turned out ever so much better than I thought. Those confounded lawyers would not let me have a copper. But I put the enemy's lawyer at them; and by Jove, sir, I expect to get five thousand pounds. Not in a lump, mind; that would be too good for an unlucky son of a gun like me; but a thousand by the end of January, and the rest when some business in Yorkshire is wound up. So I need not come down upon you for a penny; and more than that, my boy, I will pay the piper, and you can pay your share, when your ship comes in. We will have a grand time among the niggers. Don't thank me, or I'll never forgive you. You have done me a good turn, and I'll repay it. Bat Strogue is a Christian, because he backs his friends up. But he doesn't hold with forgiving his enemies. He will have Hafer by the hip, and you shall see it. Stop a moment; you know some great swells, don't you?" "One or two people of title I know. But none of them are in London yet. I could write to them, of course, if that would do as well." "That never does as well. But they will soon come back. Parliament meets rather early this year. And we must not expect to stir a stump till March. My friend at Petersburg is not a great gun; of about my own mark, but not of my distinction. Bless you, I can go to Court anywhere, and plenty of bowing and scraping; but a tankard of malt is worth all of it. If you could get a line under cover from a friend to our Ambassador at Petersburg, he would pass it on to Sûr Imar when he gets there, and you might make it right with your lady-love. I suppose that never occurred to you. Strogue knows the way to go to work. What do you think of that, my friend?" "I think it is a very good suggestion, and very kind of you to think of it. If I had not been in such a hurry, I daresay it would have occurred to me." "Not likely; but Nickols might have thought of it. And I daresay he knows great guns too. All those diamond-mongers do. You will manage it easily one way or another, and the sooner you do it the better. It will put a spoke in Hafer's wheel, but not the one I mean to put. Ask Nickols what sort of a winter they are having out that way. It might make a great difference to us. They very seldom have it as ours is, generally the very opposite. We are having it mild, so the chances are that they have got a stinger. All Azof was frozen up, and a good bit of the Black Sea, the last time I came that way, and in London and Paris there had not been one day's skating. However, you keep ready."