Septimus Hardon rose from his seat to begin anxiously pacing up and down the room. He could see plainly enough the value of the position he was nerving himself to fight for, but he shrank, as he had shrunk again and again, from the exposure certain, whether he succeeded or not. Vacillating in the extreme, he was at one time telling himself that it was his duty to try and clear his mother's fame, though the next moment would find him shrinking from the task, while his brow wrinkled up as he sighed and looked from face to face, lastly on that of old Matt, who, having relieved himself of the child, was taking snuff extravagantly, and chuckling and rubbing his hands in anticipation of the coming triumph. "Now, sir," he said upon catching the troubled man's eye, "about this doctor." "Dead before now," said Septimus. "Allowing him to have been quite young for a doctor, he would be eighty now, and how few men reach that age!" "Pooh! nonsense!" cried Matt; "scores do--hundreds do--ninety either. Eighty? Pooh! nothing! youth, sir. Why, I'm past sixty, and see what a boy I look, eh? Why, I believe Miss Lucy would pick me out from scores to take care of her,--wouldn't you, miss?" Lucy looked up from her work, nodded and smiled. "But now business," said the old man.--"Where did you live, sir, before you went down in the country?" "Finsbury," said Septimus. "And you were born there, eh?" "I believe so," said Septimus, wondering in his own mind whether it was worth all this trouble, perhaps to gain nothing. "To be sure," cried Matt; "and now we shall soon find it out. Brass plate on the door--`Mr Phillips, Surgeon;' big lamp sticking out, red bull's-eye one side, green t'other, like railway signals; `danger' and `all right' to the people in the street." Old Matt rose to go, after appointing to meet Septimus on the following morning to take the first steps for obtaining the "documentary evidence" so necessary for their future plans. "Ten to the moment, you'll see me, sir," said Matt. "Good afternoon, ma'am, and--Ah, Miss Lucy's gone!" But Septimus only sighed, and sat down once more to his weary copying, sheets of which he so often spoiled by letting his thoughts wander from the task in hand. "No more business in him, sir," said Matt as he descended the stairs, "than--Ah, here we are, then! Thought I was going away without seeing you again, miss;" for he had encountered Lucy upon the stairs. "Hush!" she whispered, "I only wanted to ask you to please be careful. I was so frightened this afternoon." Old Matt buttoned up his coat as tightly as if his honour were inside it, pursed up his lips, nodded his head seriously, and then laying one finger upon the side of his nose he shuffled off, looking as mysterious as if he were the repository of state secrets, and ready to bid defiance to all the racks and thumbscrews of the good old times.