He dreamt that many men of many kinds were offering him money in incredible amounts, as loans, as gifts, as reversions, as exorbitant prices for securities which he held; and yet these offers did not please, but vaguely disturbed him, for they were made by sundry beings with faces always distorted, sometimes horrible, who sat beside him on the seat of a hansom cab, wherein he drove. In the corners of this cab, before him, were bottles of champagne. It was brilliantly lit, and he could see outside in the darkness between the shafts, that it was drawn not by a horse, but by his friend Mr Abbott. The dream was evil, and, though he knew not by what the cab was driven, yet he knew there sat up there some Thing which he did not care to think of, and which he did not dare to see. Twice he would have lifted the trap to glance furtively; twice his hand failed him and his body grew quite cold with fear. Such is the nature of dreams, that he found the event but ordinary when the hansom turned into a bath chair, running of itself, and this again to his own bed, which seemed to be at once in his own bedroom, and yet in a crowded street; up and down this street he noticed a multitude of people, nearly all of whom he knew, going to their business. The last of them came, a healthy, up-standing figure, tall, strong, rubicund; he was well familiar with it: it was that of the Honourable, the Reverend Peregrine Mauclerc, vicar of St Judas’s, Denmark Hill, a church he constantly attended. This figure, passing rapidly, nodded at him in a breezy way, and cried cheerfully and very loudly: “It will be paid for in shares.” Then an awful spasm of pain, come and gone in a twinkling, incredibly severe, shot through his chest; and Mr Burden suddenly awoke. He was gasping and sitting upright; to his astonishment it was quite dark. Never had his regular sleep been broken by such a sharp and dreadful agony: rarely had it been broken at all for many years. Indeed, since his father’s death, and the relief from political discussion which followed it, he could remember nothing of the night save evening, and then daylight again. But now he found himself staring at darkness, with his left hand at his chest. The pain had darted and vanished like the stab of a dagger; but the shock was still in his brain. There lay under his pillow a gold watch, presented to him, after their release, by the officers and men of the Commander-in-Chief’s Own Fighting Body-guard, in recognition of his services and generous subscription to the Prisoners’ Funds. It was of great value; upon sliding a small spring along the side this watch would strike the hours and the quarters and the minutes, while pressure upon one of three jewelled buttons caused it to render _Hearts of Oak_, or _The Wearing of the Green_, or Mr Kipling’s _Kill ’im wid yer mouf_; but these Mr Burden very properly left silent, save when he would amuse the children of his friends.