"Never, never despair, Mr. Aubrey! Heaven helps those who help themselves; and I really imagine I see your powerful energies already beginning to surmount your prodigious difficulties! When you shall have slept over the matter, you will feel the full relief which this proposed arrangement is so calculated to afford your spirits. Of course, too, you will lose no time in communicating to Messrs. Runnington the nature of the proposal. I can predict that they will be not a little disposed to urge upon you its completion. I cannot, however, help once more reminding you, in justice to myself, Mr. Aubrey, that it is _but_ a proposition, in making which, I hope it will not prove that I have been carried away by my feelings much further than my duty to my client or his interests "---- Mr. Aubrey was afraid to hear him finish the sentence, lest the faint dawn of hope should disappear from the dark and rough surface of the sea of trouble upon which he was being tossed. "I _will_ consult, as you suggest, sir, my experienced and honorable professional advisers; and am strongly inclined to believe that they will feel as you predict. I am of course bound to defer to _them_,"---- "Oh, certainly! certainly! I am very strict in the observance of professional etiquette, Mr. Aubrey, I assure you; and should not think of going on with this arrangement, except with their concurrence, acting on your behalf. One thing I have to beg, Mr. Aubrey, that either you or they will communicate the result of your deliberations to _me_, personally. I am very desirous that the suggested compromise should be broken to my partners and our client by _me._--By the way, if you will favor me with your address, I will make a point of calling at your house, either late in the evening or early in the morning." [As if Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap had not kept eagle eyes upon his every movement since quitting Yatton, with a view to any sudden application for a writ of _Ne Exeas_, which a suspicious approach of his towards the sea-coast might render necessary!] "I am infinitely obliged to you, sir--but it would be far more convenient for both of us, if you could drop me a line, or favor me with a call at Mr. Weasel's, in Pomegranate Court in the Temple." Gammon blushed scarlet: but for this accidental mention of the name of Mr. Weasel, who was one of the pleaders occasionally employed by Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap in heavy matters--in all probability Mr. Aubrey might, within a day or two's time, have had to exercise his faculties, if so disposed, upon a declaration of Trespass for Mesne Profits, in a cause of "TITMOUSE _v._ AUBREY!"