He had vaguely hoped that by the more constitutional and legal plans of bribery and corruption Mr. W. S. Sharkley might have received them from the custodier; but now they were in his hands and he was all impatience, tremulous with eagerness, and spectacles on nose, to peruse them, and test their value by that legal knowledge which he undoubtedly possessed. His fingers, white and delicate, and on one of which sparkled the magnificent diamond ring which his late uncle had received when on his Russian embassy, literally trembled and shook, as if with ague, when he opened the old battered and well-worn tin case. The first document drawn forth had a somewhat unpromising appearance; it was sorely soiled, frayed, and seemed to have been frequently handled. "What the deuce is this, Mr. Sharkley?" asked Downie, with some contempt of tone. "Can't say, my lord--never saw such a thing before; it ain't a writ or a summons, surely!" It was simply a soldier's "Parchment Certificate," and ran thus:-- _Cornish Regiment of Light Infantry._ "These are to certify that Derrick Braddon, Private, was born in the Parish of Gulval, Duchy of Cornwall; was enlisted there for the said corps, &c., was five years in the West Indies, ten in North America, and six at Gibraltar; was twice wounded in action with the Canadian rebels, and has been granted a pension of one shilling per diem. A well conducted soldier, of unexceptionably good character." Then followed the signature of his colonel and some other formula. "Pshaw!" said Downie, tossing it aside; but the more wary Sharkley, to obliterate all links or proofs of conspiracy, deposited it carefully in the fire, when it shrivelled up and vanished; so the little record of his twenty-one years' faithful service, of his two wounds, and his good character, attested by his colonel, whom he had ever looked up to as a demigod, and which Derrick had borne about with him as Gil Blas did his patent of nobility, was lost to him for ever. But more than ever did Downie's hands tremble when he drew forth the other documents; when he saw their tenor, and by the mode in which they were framed, worded, stamped, and signed, he was compelled to recognise their undoubted authority! A sigh of mingled rage and relief escaped him; but, as yet, no thought of compunction. He glanced at the fire, at the papers, and at Sharkley, more than once in succession, and hesitated either to move or speak. He began to feel now that the lingering of his emissary in his presence, when no longer wanted, was intolerable; but he was too politic to destroy the papers before him, though no other witness was present.