"Ah--I remember! I'll be with him the moment after breakfast!" replied Titmouse: Gammon shook him by the hand--feeling, when he had shut both his doors, as if he had been playing with an ape. "Oh, thou indefinable and undiscoverable principle regulating human affairs!" thought he, falling into a revery, a bitter scowl settling on his strongly-marked features; "of what nature soever thou art, and if any such there really be, what conceivable purpose canst thou have had in view in placing this execrable idiot and ME, in our relative positions?" He pursued this line of reflection for some time, till he had got into a far more melancholy and misanthropical humor than he had ever before fallen into--till, recollecting himself, and with a deep sigh, he rang for a fresh supply of coffee from his drowsy laundress; and then exerted himself vigorously till nearly five o'clock in the morning, at which hour he sank, exhausted, into bed. During the ensuing day, sure enough, he received a communication signed "_Simeon Spitfire_," and dated from "_Scorpion Court_," informing him that its respectable writer "was instructed to apply to him, on the part of Mr. Titmouse, for the immediate delivery up of two promissory notes for £5,000 each, given by one Charles Aubrey to the aforesaid Titmouse," and "begging Mr. Gammon's immediate attention thereto." Gammon instantly copied out and sent an answer which he had carefully prepared beforehand--taking very high ground indeed, but slipping in, with a careful inadvertence, an encouraging admission of the strict _legal_ right of Mr. Spitfire's client. 'T was, in short, a charming letter--showing its writer to be one of the most fastidiously high-minded men living; but producing not the least favorable effect upon the mind of Mr. Spitfire, who instantly forwarded a formal and peremptory demand of the two documents in question. Gammon wrote a second letter, alluding to an unguarded (!) admission made in his former communication, which he most devoutly hoped would not be used against him; and in terms of touching and energetic eloquence, reasserted that, though the letter of the law might be against him, he conceived that, in point of honor, and indeed of justice, he was warranted in adhering to the solemn promise which he had made to a gentleman for whom he entertained the most profound respect; and, in short, he flatly refused to give up the instruments demanded! Irrepressible was the exultation of Mr. Spitfire, on finding himself getting so much the better of so astute a person as Mr. Gammon! and he took an opportunity of showing to every one who came to his little office, how Mr. Gammon had laid himself open to the superior tactics of him--the aforesaid Mr. Spitfire!--He then, with profound astuteness, wrote a fine flourishing letter to wind up the correspondence, and stick into an affidavit; in the course of which he apprised Mr. Gammon that the Court of King's Bench would be immediately