"I take this doosid kind of you, my dear Streightley, coming round in this way when I asked you. Doosid kind!" said Mr. Guyon; "and I show my appreciation of it by receiving you without the least ceremony or the least humbug--which is the greater compliment. When one says to a fellow, 'I want to see you on a matter of business,' the fellow who's good enough to come round naturally expects to see the fellow who sent for him in a state of business--stiff shirt-collar, and almanac, and all that kind of thing. That's what I myself should do to some fellows; but I don't to you. I say to myself, 'He's above all that sort of dodgery. He's a real man of business, and would see through it at once. Let him take me as I am. I'm an idle, nothing-doing, pleasure-seeking son of a gun: he knows it; why should I attempt to disguise my natural self from him and prove myself to be somebody else? Let him see me as my natural self." Here Mr. Guyon paused for an instant to take a sip from the cut-glass goblet and to throw away the butt-end of the cigarette. Feeling it incumbent on him to say something, Robert Streightley murmured, "Very kind!" "No," said Mr. Guyon, raising himself on his elbow, and looking lazily across the table at his visitor, "not very kind. Shrewd, perhaps, but not kind. When a man is in want of serious advice, and goes to the fountain-head for--that kind of thing--boldly and without scruple, he may be said to be shrewd. Now, that's my case; and I come to you." This, so far, was so like the commencement of Mr. Guyon's conversations when loans were in question that Streightley had made up his mind that more money was required; he changed his opinion, however, as his host proceeded. "Now, my dear Robert,--you'll forgive an old fellow's familiarity, won't you? I don't often indulge in a fancy, but when I do I'm like the--ivy, damme, I cling. You can see, you must have seen plainly enough long since, that I'm not a man of business. In three words, I hate it. If I had been a rich man, I'd have had a fellow to do all my business for me while I smoked my cigarette and looked on; and hitherto whenever it's been a question of business, money, and all those horrible details arising from the want of it, I've shirked it as long as I could, and then stumbled through it in a devilish blind, stupid, haphazard kind of manner. That's been all very well so far; but now another question arises,--a very different question--one touching the heart and that kind of thing, and the welfare of a person who--however, I'll go into that by and by;--a question on which, I feel so deeply, that I've determined to be guided by the advice of the clearest-headed man of my acquaintance--and so I've sent for you." Robert Streightley bowed, and murmured a few words of incoherent thanks. Not money! Question on which he felt so deeply! What was Mr. Guyon driving at?