method and accuracy had Snap observed in his accounts, that they secured him a clear gain of £350; the difference between that sum and £500, being the amount actually and _bonâ fide_ advanced by him to Titmouse. Deducting, therefore, £1,300, (the amount of the two minor demands of £800 and £500 above specified,) there remained to Mr. Titmouse out of the £20,000 the sum of £3,700; and he ought to have been thankful; for he _might_ have got _nothing_--or even have been brought in debtor to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap. I say that Mr. Gammon would seem, from the above statement of accounts, not to have been dealt with in any degree adequately to his merits. He felt such to be his case; but soon reconciled himself to it, occupied as he was with arduous and extensive speculations, amid all the complication of which he never for a moment lost sight of one object, viz.--_himself_. His schemes were boldly conceived, and he went about the accomplishment of them with equal patience and sagacity. Almost everything was at present going on as he could have wished. He had contrived to place himself in a very convenient fast-and-loose sort of position with reference to his fellow-partners--one which admitted of his easily disengaging himself from them, whenever the proper time should have arrived for taking such a step. He was absolute and paramount over Titmouse, and could always secure his instant submission, by virtue of the fearful and mysterious talisman which he occasionally flashed before his startled eyes. He had acquired great influence, also, over the Earl of Dreddlington--an influence which was constantly on the increase; and had seen come to pass an event which he judged to be of great importance to him--namely, the engagement between Titmouse and the Lady Cecilia. Yet was there one object which he had proposed to himself as incalculably valuable and supremely desirable--as the consummation of all his designs and wishes; I mean the obtaining the hand of Miss Aubrey--and in which he had yet a fearful misgiving of failure. But he was a man whose courage rose with every obstacle; and he fixedly resolved within himself, to succeed, at any cost. 'Twas not alone his exquisite appreciation of her personal beauty, her grace, her accomplishments, her lovely temper, her lofty spirit, her high birth--objects all of them dazzling enough to a man of such a powerful and ambitious mind, and placed in such circumstances in life as Gammon. There were certain other considerations, intimately involved in all his calculations, which--as may possibly become apparent hereafter--rendered success in this affair a matter of vital consequence--nay, indispensable. Knowing, as I do, what had passed at different times between that proud and determined girl and her constant and enthusiastic lover, Mr. Delamere, I am as certain as a man can be of anything that has not actually happened, that, though she may possibly not be fated to become Mrs.