Here Colonel Sutherland interrupted the fluent speaker: "Did the confidential clerk, whom you sent to make inquiries, happen to be my nephew, Horace Scarsdale?" asked the old soldier. "Your _nephew_!" Mr. Pouncet stood dismayed. "The young man's name was certainly Scarsdale," he said, after a little puzzled pause. "Then I have no doubt that accounts for the failure of the investigation," said the Colonel, who had been bending his deaf ear to the wily attorney with an earnest attention, strangely out of keeping with the insincere and untrustworthy voice to which he listened. "Much grief as it gives me to say so, Armitage, I am afraid Horace would hinder rather than help. I don't know how he has mixed himself up with such an affair," said Uncle Edward, musing; "but he certainly has to do with it somehow. He's--alas! very clever, this nephew of mine; unhappily brought up, poor fellow! fond of intrigue, I fear, one kind or another. Mr. Pouncet, I'd recommend you to employ another man." "With the greatest of pleasure," said Mr. Pouncet, chuckling to himself; "of course, I yield any little knowledge I may have of young Scarsdale to the superior information of a relative--ha, ha! Your candid judgment does you credit, I am sure, Colonel. Mr. Scarsdale is not here to-day, I am sorry to say; very unsettled lately he has appeared to me. Ah, come in, Edwards! I've some instructions to give you before these gentlemen. We will lose no time, Sir John, and you shall hear my directions with your own ears." "That'll do, Pouncet" said Sir John, with a slight air of disgust. "My own opinion is, you're a deal too easy in your talk to mean anything. Hope you don't know any more about it than you choose to tell us, which appears to me, begging your pardon, a long way more likely than not; for who's to cheat a man if it isn't his own attorney? Send your clerk if you like, I'll have nothing to do with it. If one wants a thing well done, one must do it oneself. Come along, Sutherland; no, I'm not satisfied, and I don't pretend to be." Saying which, in spite of Mr. Pouncet's strenuous endeavours to explain, and to set himself right with his wealthy client, Sir John fought his way out, dragging along with him his young and his old friend. The Colonel looked very grave and rather sad, wondering what "motive" Horace could have for helping to injure Roger. Meanwhile, that young hero himself took, it is to be confessed, more amusement than anything else from the entire matter. His hopes were so slight that they did not at all excite him, whereas he could not but perceive that Sir John's little burst of ill-humour, and Mr. Pouncet's discomfiture thereat, was tolerably good fun. They went to the inn to have lunch, all three displaying their various humours--of which Sir John's was the most demonstrative and plain-spoken.