"Mr. Runnington is steadily and patiently unravelling," said he, as they sat in unrestrained converse after dinner--(I must take the opportunity of saying that Miss Aubrey looked as beautiful as ever, and in brilliant spirits)--"one of the most monstrous tissues of fraud that ever was woven by man! We sometimes imagine that Mr. Gammon must have had in view the securing Yatton for himself! The firm of Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, are completely overwhelmed with the consequences of their abominable conduct!--I understand they have terribly taken in the Jews--to the amount of at least seventy or eighty thousand pounds of hard cash; and one of them, it seems, on discovering that he has no real and effectual security, very nearly succeeded in hanging himself the other day." "What's this I see in the paper about a Mr. Tag-rag?" inquired Lord De la Zouch:--and Mr. Aubrey told him the miserable condition to which Tag-rag had been reduced by the alleged chicanery of the firm of Quirk, Gammon, and Snap. "Mr. Runnington seems to be managing matters with great vigor and skill," said his Lordship. "Admirably! admirably! I never in my life saw or heard of such complete success as attends every step he takes against the enemy; he is hourly pressing them nearer and nearer to the verge of the precipice, and cutting off all retreat. They would fight, but they have no funds! Look at the administration suit!" Mr. Aubrey then proceeded to mention two very important circumstances which had come to his knowledge since his former visit to town. First, an offer was understood to have come direct from Mr. Gammon, to abandon the defence to the ejectment, on condition of his receiving, on behalf of Mr. Titmouse, the sum of two thousand pounds; but Mr. Runnington had peremptorily refused to listen to any proposal of the kind, and the action was, at that moment, in full progress, with every prospect of there being no real defence even attempted. The next piece of intelligence was, that Messrs. Screw and Son, the solicitors to the Vulture Insurance Company, had called on Messrs. Runnington, on learning that they were the solicitors of the party to whom letters of administration had been granted, and intimated that the directors--those discreet and candid gentlemen--"taking all the circumstances of the case into their consideration," had determined to offer no further opposition to the payment of the policy on the life of the late Lady Stratton. Mr. Screw talked very finely about the high principle and good feeling which ever actuated that distinguished Company; but he did not tell Mr. Runnington what was the real cause of their abandoning their opposition, which was this--that before their "commission" to examine their sole witness, Dr. Podagra, could have reached China, they had accidentally received authentic intelligence of his death; he having been killed by a crowd for vaccinating the infant of one of the Chinese! Under these circumstances, Mr. Runnington agreed