"Oh, you'll _recollect_ enough, in due time, friend Gammon, if you'll only turn your attention to it; and if you'll bear in mind it's life and death to my poor girl. Oh Lord! I must get my sister to break it to her, and I'll send sealed instructions to Mr. ---- Weasel, shall we say? or Lynx? ay, Lynx; for he'll then have to fight for his own pleadings; and can't turn round at the trial and say, 'this is not right,' and 'that's wrong,' and, '_why_ didn't you have such and such evidence?' Lynx is the man; and I'll lay the venue in Yorkshire, for Titmouse is devilish disliked down there; and a special jury will be only too glad to give him a desperate slap in the chops! We'll lay the damages at twenty thousand pounds! Ah, ha! I'll teach the young villain to break the hearts of an old man and his daughter. But, egad," he pulled out his watch, "half-past two; and Nicky Crowbar sure to be put up at three! By Jove! it won't do to be out of the way; he's head of the gang, and they always come down very liberally when they're in trouble. Snap! Amminadab! hollo! who's there? Drat them all, why don't they speak?" The old gentleman was soon, however, attended to. "Are they here?" he inquired, as Mr. Amminadab entered. "Yes, sir, all three; and the coach is at the door, too. Nicky Crowbar's to be up at three, sir"---- "I see--I know--I'm ready," replied Mr. Quirk, who was presently seated in the coach with three gentlemen, to whom he minutely explained the person of Mr. Nicky Crowbar, and the place at which it was quite certain that Mr. Crowbar could _not_ have been at half-past eleven o'clock on Tuesday night the 9th of July, seeing that it did so happen that at that precise time he was elsewhere, in company with these very three gentlemen--to wit, at Chelsea, and _not at Clapham_! In short, this was a first-rate ALIBI.