"I devoutly trust not! Your Grace will observe that it depends a good deal on the prominence which any one takes in the affair." "Egad! is that the principle? Then, I assure you, Mr. Gammon, upon my word of honor, that I have not taken the least public part in the proceedings"---- "I am very happy to hear it, your Grace. Nor have I--but I very much fear that my Lord Dreddlington may have gone farther a good deal"---- "I've several times warned him on the subject, I assure you. By the way, there's that other affair, Mr. Gammon, I hope--eh?--that the Gunpowder and Fresh Water"---- "Good heavens, your Grace! I hope all is right _there_--or I, for one, am a ruined man!" replied Gammon, quickly. "I--I--hope so too, sir.--So Lord Dreddlington was a good deal shocked, eh, this morning?" "Yes, indeed he was--nay, I may say, terribly excited! I was greatly alarmed on his account, directly I saw him." "And is this Mr. Titmouse--eh?--involved in the thing?" "I really can't tell, your Grace--his movements are somewhat eccentric--it's extremely difficult to discover or account for them! By the way, I recollect, now, that I _did_ mention his name to Lord Dreddlington." "Ah, indeed! What about?" interrupted his Grace, briskly. "Why, I just heard that early this morning there would be one or two executions put into his house--he's been going on lately in a very wild way." "Oh, he's a monstrous little--but was that all that passed between you and my Lord Dreddlington about him?" "I will undertake to say," replied Gammon, pausing, putting his finger to his lips, and appearing to try to recollect--"that that was the only mention made of his name, for soon after his Lordship was seized with a fit," and Mr. Gammon proceeded to give the duke a very vivid and feeling description of it. "What a singular hallucination his Lordship must be laboring under, to make such an assertion concerning me as he appears to have made!" presently observed Gammon. "Very!" replied the duke, gravely, still feeling serious misgivings on the subject; but what could he either say, or do, further, after the solemn, the explicit, and repeated denials of Mr. Gammon? His Grace then gave him an account of what he had heard as to the mode of Lord Dreddlington's seizure, and that of Lady Cecilia; and as he went on, Gammon quivered from head to foot--and it required all his extraordinary powers of self-command to conceal his excessive agitation from the duke. "By the way, where is Mr. Titmouse?" inquired the duke, as he rose, after saying that he was going on immediately to Grosvenor Square. "I have sent to Park Lane, and find that he has not been there since the morning." "I really don't know, I assure your Grace. I have not seen him for several days. If his affairs are as seriously involved as your Grace would intimate, he may probably be keeping out of the way!"