Mr. Thacker was silent for a few minutes, nor could Mr. Guyon, intently scanning his face, derive the smallest idea from its expression. Then he made a few rapid calculations on the blotting-pad in front of him, and said: "You play for a big stake, Mr. Guyon, and don't stick at asking trifles from your friends. Now, I like a big game; it at once invests any scheme with an interest for me which I cannot give to mere pottering petty hazards. And I don't say that I won't help you in this--on certain terms--only----" "Your terms will be your own, my good fellow," cried Guyon, his eye sparkling at the thought of success. "But I don't like that 'only.' What is it? Only what?" "Only that I should like to be introduced to Mr. Streightley, and have a little talk with him; of course not on the subject under consideration, but on general topics, just to get an idea of him, you know. It's a large sum to advance, in addition to outstanding matters; and I'm a man of business, you know, Guyon, and like to see my way in these things." "All right. Come down with me to the City, and we'll hunt him up in his den." "No; I think not. We business-men don't like being hunted up in our dens, as you call them, unless our visitors bring us a carcass or two to growl over. You go over and see Streightley, and bring him here to lunch to-morrow at two. I leave you to find the excuse; your ready wit serves you always in such matters." There was a tinge of sarcasm in Mr. Thacker's voice as he uttered these last words, but Mr. Guyon was in far too excited a state to perceive it. So he took his leave with much exuberant hand-shaking, and started off with much self-complacency. After his departure Mr. Thacker sat for some little time, leaning his head on his hands and his elbows on the desk, immersed in thought. "He's an unscrupulous vagabond, is Guyon!" said he to himself after a pause. "He's going to sell that handsome daughter of his, as he would a bit of land, or a diamond-ring, or a reversion under a will, or any thing that would bring him money. A determined heartless dog! But he seems to have either played his cards well or to have had great luck in hooking so big a fish as Streightley. Robert Streightley! Yes, yes; they say he pulled the Ocean Marine through when Overend Gurneys had given them up and the knowing ones looked for an immediate windup, and now their shares are at 13 premium, and there are no end of the clever things he's done. He might be useful to me, might put me up to two or three wrinkles in the City, where all is big and where one's own natural talent has some chance of showing itself. Hitherto I've been pottering on with hard-up swells, and men of the Guyon stamp--safe business enough, and remunerative so far as it goes; pleasant too in its introductions to good people; but I know enough people now, and must look to making money as the chief thing. And this Streightley is the very man who could help me in such a matter. If I now see him, I'll