He had a scheme, too, in his waiting, of taking a vengeance on this same wife who had made it necessary for him to fall at all. Without her wild extravagance he would have been able to weather the commercial depression which had weighed him down; but she had scoffed at warnings, and increased the muster-roll of her guests, and fed them on bank-notes. What this scheme was he confided to no one but George, and George did not split. George hated Mrs. Shelf to the extent of showing ivory whenever she was near him. “George,” said Mr. Shelf, at the conclusion of one of these grim confidences, “I shall be a lonely man. You must come out there with me.” And George poked a cold black nose into Mr. Shelf’s hand, and said that he should be vastly disappointed if he was left behind. Now Mr. Theodore Shelf intended to have his vengeance on the night of a ball which his wife was going to give, and which for sheer gorgeousness and distinguished assembly was to rival by far all her previous efforts; and he was quite satisfied in his own mind that the action would be entirely justifiable. Still he was a man not without natural affections. He was extremely fond of his ward, Amy Rivers, even though, through the hard commercial shrewdness of Hamilton Fairfax, he had been obliged to refund her fortune which he had laid hands upon, and so bring nearer the day of his own ruin. Many men would have visited their natural annoyance on the girl, but Shelf did not. Indeed, he was only known to be disagreeable to her once, and that once was the last time he and she had speech together; and what he said then was entirely to her interest and without any profit to himself. It was on the morning of the great ball, and he called her to him in his room, and asked if Fairfax would be there that evening. “Of course,” she said. “Why?” “After what has passed between us?” “You mean in the City?” “I do, my dear. Mr. Fairfax has displeased me much. First of all, he resigned from the directorate of my new company, the ‘Brothers Steamship Association,’ on which I had placed him, a very flattering position for so young a man; and then he caused me deep sorrow in doubting the pureness of my motives in floating the company at all. I am long-suffering, Amy, and because it is my duty to bear with the hasty, I do so as much as possible. But Mr. Fairfax over-stepped the mark. Such a spirit as his would cause dissension amongst our simple-minded workers, and I felt it due to them that he should no longer be at their side.” “So you gave him the—well, the sack. Of course, I know.” “Perhaps,” said Mr. Shelf, with a smile of pain, “he will be able to obtain employment elsewhere, or, being a young man of means, he may choose to set up in business for himself; but I fear, my dear, that he will miss many of the Christian influences which so elevate and purify the dependents of Marmaduke Rivers and Shelf.”