“Don’t be made a weathercock of by a parcel of women. I want to find a man worth something. If you go on with it, you shall end by riding in your carriage, and cutting it as fine as any of them. I’ll take care your belly is not punished while you’re about it. “From the time your name is over your shop, I give you £300 per annum. “Or stop. There’s nine of you. They shall have £40. per annum apiece, 9 times 40, eh? That’s better than £300., if you know how to reckon. Don’t you wish it was ninety-nine tailors to a man! I could do that too, and it would not break me; so don’t be a proud young ass, or I’ll throw my money to the geese. Lots of them in the world. How many geese to a tailor? “Go on for five years, and I double it. “Give it up, and I give you up. “No question about me. The first tailor can be paid his £40 in advance, by applying at the offices of Messrs. Grist, Gray’s Inn Square, Gray’s Inn. Let him say he is tailor No. 1, and show this letter, signed Agreed, with your name in full at bottom. This will do—money will be paid—no questions one side or other. So on—the whole nine. The end of the year they can give a dinner to their acquaintance. Send in bill to Messrs. Grist. “The advice to you to take the cash according to terms mentioned is advice of “A FRIEND. “P.S. You shall have your wine. Consult among yourselves, and carry it by majority what wine it’s to be. Five carries it. Dozen and half per tailor, per annum—that’s the limit.” It was certainly a very hot day. The pores of his skin were prickling, and his face was fiery; and yet he increased his pace, and broke into a wild gallop for a mile or so; then suddenly turned his horse’s head back for Beckley. The secret of which evolution was, that he had caught the idea of a plotted insult of Laxley’s in the letter, for when the blood is up we are drawn the way the tide sets strongest, and Evan was prepared to swear that Laxley had written the letter, because he was burning to chastise the man who had injured him with Rose. Sure that he was about to confirm his suspicion, he read it again, gazed upon Beckley Court in the sultry light, and turned for Fallowfield once more, devising to consult Mr. John Raikes on the subject.