“And he was a client this morning—and may be tomorrow.” The banker considered. There was something in that; and this sudden interest in the bank was gratifying. Yet—yet he did not quite understand it. “You seem to be confoundedly taken up with this,” he said, “but I don’t see why you need mix yourself up with it farther. The scoundrel’s neck is in a halter and he won’t be taken without a struggle. Have you thought of that?” “I’d take him if he were ten,” Clement said—and blushed at his own enthusiasm. He muttered something about the man being a villain, and the sooner he was laid by the heels the better. “Yes, by someone. But I don’t see why you need be the one.” “Anyway, I’m going to do it, sir,” Clement replied with unexpected independence. “I shall go by the Nantwich coach at half-past five, drop off at Altringham, and catch him as he goes through. True, if he goes by Frodsham I may miss him, but I fancy that the morning coach by Frodsham leaves Chester too early for him. And, after all, I can’t stop every bolt-hole.” Ovington wondered anew, seeing his son in a new light. This was not the idler with his eyes on the ledger and his thoughts abroad, whom he had known in the bank, but a young man with purpose in his glance and a cut on his cheek-bone, who looked as if he could be ugly if it came to a pinch. A quite new Clement—or new at any rate to him. He reflected. The affair would be talked of, and certainly it would be a feather in the bank’s cap if the money, which the Squire had withdrawn, were recovered through the bank’s exertions. Viewed in that light there was method in the lad’s madness, whatever had bitten him, “Well, I think it is a dangerous business,” he said at last, “and it is not your business. But go, if you will, only you must take Payne with you.” Payne was the bank man-of-all-work, but Clement would not hear of Payne. If he could be called at five, he asked no more. Even if all the seats on the Victory were booked, they would find room for him somewhere. “But your face?” Betty said. “Isn’t it painful? It’s turning black.” “I’ll bet that villain’s is as black!” he retorted. “I know I got home on him once. Only let me be called.” But his father saw that, as he passed through the hall, he took one of the bank pistols out of the case in which they were kept, and slipped it into his pocket. The banker wondered anew, and felt perhaps more anxiety than he showed. At any rate, it was he who called the lad at five and saw that he drank the coffee that Betty had prepared, and that he ate something. At the last, indeed, Clement feared that his father might offer to accompany him, but he did not. Possibly he had decided that if his son was bent on proving his mettle in this odd business, it was wisest not to balk him.