"Kismet," he muttered to himself as he strode down the street,--"Kismet in full force. Laura Hammond back in England, and an acquaintance formed between her and Mitford already. Taken with her, he seemed too. She's just the woman that would fetch such a man as he. Well, let Kismet do its worst; I shall stand by and see the play." CHAPTER IX. MR. EFFINGHAM'S PROCEEDINGS. When Mr. Effingham found himself with fifty pounds in his pocket outside the bank where he had changed Sir Charles Mitford's cheque, he could scarcely contain his exultation. His dealings with bankers had been few, and not always satisfactory. He had had cheques in his possession which he had been too bashful to present in his own proper person, but had employed a little boy to take to the counter while he waited round the corner of an adjacent street; he had had cheques which he had presented himself, but the proceeds of which, when asked "how he would have," he had always taken in gold, as a more convenient and untraceable medium. On the present occasion, however, he had walked boldly in; had rapped on the counter, to the horror and dismay of the old gentleman behind banking-firm, passing through the public office on his way to the private parlour, peered at Mr. Effingham. under his bushy-grey eyebrows curiously; but Mr. Effingham did not mind that. The porter sitting on a very hard stool just inside the swing doors rubbed his nose and winked significantly at the policeman in plain clothes stationed just outside the swing-doors, whose duty was to help rich old-lady customers in and out of their carriages. Both porter and policeman stared very hard at Mr. Effingham, and Mr. Effingham returned the stare with all the eye-power at his command What did he care? They might call him back and inspect the cheque if they liked, and then they would see what they would get for attempting to molest a gentleman. In his character of gentleman, Mr. Effingham felt that his costume was scarcely so correct as it might have been; in fact, that in the mere quality of being weather-tight it was lamentably deficient. So his first proceeding was to visit an outfitter's, and then and there to procure what he termed "a rig-out" of the peculiar kind most in accordance with his resonant taste. The trousers were of such an enormous check pattern that, as the Jew tailor humorously remarked, "it would take two men to show it;" the hat shone like a bad looking-glass; the coat, though somewhat baggy in the back, was glossy, and had a cotton-velvet collar; and the Lowther-Arcade jewelry glistened in the midst of a bird's-eye scarf of portentous height and stiffness.