Later in the day Mr. Keymer senior made it his business to call on his cousin, the lawyer’s clerk. To him he said: “I have reason to believe that the Miss Thursbys of Vale View have lost the greater part, if not the whole, of their fortune. What I want you to do is, to keep your eyes and ears open and pick up whatever scraps of information may come in your way tending to prove either the truth or falsity of the rumour which has reached me.” The brewer argued with himself that if the news conveyed by the letter which Launce had read should prove to be correct, the sisters would go to his cousin’s employer, as their local man of business, and seek his advice in the matter—which, some few days later, was precisely what they did. CHAPTER XIII. CAPTAIN VERINDER AND HIS VISITOR While the events bearing on the life-story of Ethel Thursby, as narrated in the last few chapters, were duly working themselves out, certain other events destined to exercise an important influence on her future, the chief factors in which were two people of whose very existence she was unaware, were in process of evolution. It was eleven o’clock on a bright May morning, and Captain Verinder, who had only lately risen and had but just finished his breakfast, which this morning had consisted of nothing more substantial than a tumbler of rum and milk, was engaged in a rueful examination of the pockets of the suit of clothes he had been wearing the previous evening. “Not a stiver more,” he said, with a grimace, as he tossed his waistcoat across the room; and with that he turned and counted for the second time the little pile of silver and coppers which he had previously extracted from his pockets and placed on the chimney-piece. “Seven shillings and elevenpence-ha’penny, all told,” he muttered; “and there’s seventeen days yet to be got through before the end of the month.” It was not the first time by many that he had found himself “cornered,” but the process became none the pleasanter through repetition. He turned away with a shrug, and began to charge his meerschaum with the strong tobacco he was in the habit of smoking. “When we find ourselves in a hole of our own digging, or in a scrape, the result of our own folly, we have a way of telling ourselves that the truest philosophy is to grin and bear it. Of course there’s nothing else to be done, but it’s only cold pudding at the best.” He spoke aloud as he had a way of doing when alone. “Verinder, my dear boy, if there was ever any man who sold himself cheap, you were that one last night. Let us hope you will take the lesson to heart, and not carry your nose quite so high in the air in time to come.” Having lighted his pipe, he drew his shabby dressing-gown about him and seated himself in a somewhat dilapidated easy-chair by his open window in Tilney Street, Soho—a narrow thoroughfare of tall, old-fashioned houses that had seen better days.