Tony spoke little, but he spoke with weight, and expected to be followed closely, when he gave us anything. And it became pleasant to behold my uncle gradually forming a great opinion of him, because he was not offered much to build it on. Sam Henderson nodded very knowingly to me, and I returned it with a wink behind my Uncle Corny’s head, when the pipes were put upon the table, and the grower took the clean one he intended for himself, and gave it (with a grunt at his own generosity) to Tonks. “Now we all know where we are,” began my uncle, as if a puffing pipe had been the cloudy pillar; “the best thing, as I have always found in life, is for people to know what they are at, before they do it.” Tony Tonks nodded, and my uncle was well pleased, both to have the discourse to himself, and to perceive that the visitor smoked slowly, and could dwell upon good things. “You give us your experience and skill, for the period of one month at least if needful, for the sum of five pounds a week payable in advance, as well as travelling expenses, if required, and lodgings. You report to us by post, when there is anything to tell, and you come down at the end of every week, to let us know how you get on, and to draw your money for the next week. And you attend to nothing else, but the job you are engaged on.” “Nothing else. Never take two things in hand at once.” “And the business you undertake for us is to find out everything that can be found about the doings of Donovan Bulwrag. Where he goes, who his companions are, what messages he receives or sends, how he employs his time, what he is up to, everything about him that is of interest to us. It seems a nasty, shabby thing, but he has brought it on himself. We can’t bear doing it; but it must be done.” “Nothing shabby in it,” Tonks exclaimed with spirit, and a quick flash in his small gray eyes; “trickey people must be tricked.” “A man who has wronged another man,” said my uncle, putting it on a larger footing, “as that low scoundrel has wronged us, has put himself outside of all honour. You know the man very well by sight, I believe.” “And by more than sight;” answered Tony, in a voice that made us look at him. But as he offered no explanation, we did not ask him what he meant, but concluded that he had his own bone to pick with this crafty enemy. CHAPTER XLVII. TOADSTOOLS. WE arranged that our watchman—as my uncle called him, thinking it much more respectable than spy—should hire a room from our friend Mrs. Wilcox, who could help him in many ways. For she knew all the habits of the house of Bulwrag, and had useful friends in the kitchen there, and could introduce Tonks to a distant view of the adversary’s mother and sisters.