Now, I had not the most remote notion how I should come to figure in this category. I knew well that you had "taken care of"--that's the word--all my little missives in that fashion. So persuaded was I of my sincerity that I offered him at once a small wager that he had mistaken his man, and that it was, in fact, some other Dodd, bent on bringing our honorable name to shame and disgrace. "It must, under these circumstances, then," said he, "be a very gross case of forgery, for the name is yours; nor can I discover any other with the same Christian names." So saying, he produced a pocket-book, like a family Bible, and drew from out a small partition of it a bill for five hundred pounds, at nine months, drawn and endorsed by me in favor of the Hon. Augustus Gore Hampton! This precious document had now about fifty-two hours some odd minutes to run. In other words, it was a crocodile's egg with the shell already bursting, and the reptile's head prepared to spring out. "The writing, if not yours, is an admirable imitation," said Davis, surveying it through his double eye-glass. "Is it yours?" asked Belton. "Yes," said I, with a great effort to behave like an ancient Roman. "Ah, then, it is all correct," said Davis, smirking. "I am charmed to find that the case presents no difficulty whatsoever." "I 'm not quite so certain of that, sir," said I; "I take a very different view of the transaction." "Don't be alarmed, Mr. Dodd," said he, coaxingly, "we are not Shylocks. We will meet your convenience in any way; in fact, it is with that sole object I have come out from England. 'Don't negotiate it,' said Mr. Gore Hampton to me,' if you can possibly help it; see Mr. D. himself, ask what arrangement will best suit him, take half the amount in cash, and renew the bill at three months, rather than push him to an inconvenience.' I assure you these were his own words, for there is n't a more generous fellow breathing than Gore." Mr. Davis uttered this with a kind of hearty expansiveness, as though to say, "The man 's my friend, and let me see who 'll gainsay me." "Am I at liberty to inquire into the circumstances of this transaction?" said Belton, who had been for some minutes attentively examining the bill, and the several names upon it, and comparing the writing with some other that he held in his hand.