"D--n the picture!" at length said he aloud--getting more and more flustered--"I'll burn it! It sha'n't disgrace my drawing-room any longer!" Here Quirk almost fancied that some busy little fiend sat squatting before the grisly picture, writing the words "CALEB QUIRK" at the bottom of it; and a sort of sickness came over him for a moment. Presently he started up, and took down one of several well-worn dingy-looking books standing on the shelves--a volume of Burns' Justice. Resuming his seat, he put on his glasses, and with a little trepidation turned to the head "Forgery," and glanced over it, divided as it was into two great heads--"Forgery at _Common Law_, and Forgery _by Statute_," with many able observations of the learned compiler, and important "_cases_" cited. At length his eye lit upon a paragraph which seemed suddenly to draw his heart up into his throat, producing a sensation which made him involuntarily clap his hand upon his neck. "Oh, Gammon!!" he muttered, drawing off his glasses, sinking back in his chair, and looking towards the door which opened into Gammon's room; extending at the same time, in that direction, his right arm, and shaking his fist. "You _precious_ villain!--I've an uncommon inclination," at length thought he, "to go down slap to Yorkshire--say nothing to anybody--make peace with the enemy, and knock up the whole thing!--For a couple of thousand pounds--a trifle to the Aubreys, I'm sure. Were _I_ in his place, I shouldn't grudge it; and why should he?--By Jove," he got a little heated--"that _would_ be, as Gammon has it, a master-move! and confined, egad! to the master-mind that thought of it!--Why should he ever know of the way in which the thing blew up?--Really, 'twould be worth half the money to _do_ Gammon so hollow for once--by George it would!--Gammon, that would slip Caleb Quirk's neck so slyly into the halter, indeed!" "I'll tell you what, Mr. Quirk," said Gammon, suddenly re-entering the room after about an hour's absence, during which he too had, like his senior partner, been revolving many things in his mind--"it has occurred to me, that I had better immediately go down to Yatton, _alone_."