remain all the while as they were; and so they _would_ have remained, but for Gammon's accidental interference: the earl being not a man of business--one who could not bear to allude to the fact of his property being mortgaged--who did not like even to _think_ of it; and concluded that good old Mr. Mudge kept a sufficiently sharp eye upon his noble client's interest. The earl gave Mr. Mudge's letter to Mr. Gammon, and requested him to lose no time in putting himself into communication with Mr. Mudge, for the purpose of effecting the suggested transfer. This Gammon undertook to do; and perceiving that he had fortunately made so strong a lodgement in the earl's good opinion, whose interests now bound him, in a measure, to Mr. Gammon, that gentleman thought that he might safely quit Yatton and return to town, in order to attend to divers matters of pressing exigency. Before his departure, however, he had a very long interview with Titmouse, in the course of which he gave that now submissive personage a few simple, perspicuous, and decisive directions, as to the line of conduct he was to pursue, and which alone could conduce to his permanent interests: enjoining him, moreover, to pursue that line, on terror of the consequences of failing to do so. The Earl of Dreddlington, in taking leave of Mr. Gammon, evinced the utmost degree of cordiality consistent with the stateliness of his demeanor. He felt, in fact, real regret at parting with a man of such superior intellect--one evincing such a fascinating deference towards himself, (the earl:) and it glanced across his Lordship's mind, that such a man as Mr. Gammon would be the very fittest man who could be thought of, in respect of tact, energy, and knowledge, to become prime minister to--his Serene Highness the Prince of Hoch-Stiffelhausen Narrenstein Dummleinberg!