“By Heaven!” said the larger of the Jews, “I never, in the ring itself, received such punishment. And then the risk--and nothing for it. The attempt at murder is now a hanging matter. There’s law for ye! Well, I suppose that chap Sloman will make us some amends, and come down handsome, as he should do, for our being regularly served out in trying to oblige him.” “You’ll never find grace or gratitude in a lawyer,” returned the hunchback. “If he does not stump up, why I say he has no conscience,” observed the smasher, “but here is Mister Brown.” “What are we to have for this night’s trouble?” inquired the stouter Jew. “Sloman won’t stand a rap, because the thing’s a failure. I tried him hard; but he won’t bleed, nor come down with a single flimsey; and yet I’d give a hundred for what he has in the side-pocket of his coat; ay, and gain another by the bargain.” “You would, would ye?” inquired “the smasher.” “Ay, and drop a pony over and above. Come here, Frank;” and Mr. Brown retired with the hunchback, and left the ruffians to commune with themselves. What passed between the owner of the mansion and his favourite is wrapt in mystery. The former returned to the apartment overhead, “to do the civil thing” to Mr. Sloman; the latter, to arrange some pressing business with his confederates in the parlour. In ten minutes Frank announced that “the gentlemen below” were gone; and Mr. Sloman, having expressed his satisfaction at the intelligence, buttoned his coat closely over the side-pocket where his note-case was deposited, put on his wrap-rascal, wound a shawl around his throat to secure it against the night air, was conducted to the churchyard door by the host, and respectfully lighted out by the hunchback. “No failure, I hope, next time, Mr. Brown,” was the lawyer’s valediction. “_It’s all made safe already_. God bless you, Mr. Sloman!” And these excellent gentlemen parted with a hearty “Good night.” Frank closed the door, Mr. Brown returned to his great chamber, and Mr. Sloman hurried away in the direction of his own residence. An unbuilt piece of ground, not a hundred yards from the small cemetery we have described as the place on which Mr. Brown’s house abutted, was early next morning the scene of public curiosity. There, a man had been discovered dead; his skull fractured by the blow of some blunt instrument, and his pockets rifled of every thing they had contained. Within an hour the body was duly recognised. The deceased was Mr. Sloman. Who were the murderers? Gentle, reader, I think you have a shrewd suspicion already. But “time tells many secrets,”--so says the Gaelic adage; and as none have doubted its accuracy, we’ll wait for further information on the subject. CHAPTER XXIII. SUNDRY OCCURRENCES NARRATED-MR. BROWN AND HIS FRIENDS IN TROUBLE. _Murderer_. Safe in a ditch he bides, With twenty trenched pashes on his head; The least a death to nature.”