The landlord looked with a keen glance at the sallow face and bandaged head of the prone foreigner. Before Crawford left, he had made a confidant of Maher to the extent that all would yet be well between Lavirotte and his grand-daughter, and he had bound Maher, as an honourable man, to silence. He had, moreover, tried to persuade Maher that Lavirotte might not be quite so black as circumstances represented him. Still the other could not help regarding Lavirotte with a feeling the reverse of cordial. There could, however, be no harm, he thought, in helping Lavirotte in this matter. He said: "Mr. Crawford came first-class." "Yes." "From Euston?" "From Euston." "Then telegraph to Euston, address Mr. Crawford, first-class passenger Irish mail, Euston." The difficulty was solved, and in a few minutes Lavirotte had forwarded the telegram, asking to what address he should send a letter to him in London. At the same time he posted his letter to Mr. O'Donnell. There was little or no chance of his receiving a reply that night, as the Glengowra office would, in all likelihood, be shut before it could be forwarded there. Next morning the answer came: "Address letter to the Cygnet Hotel, Porter Street, E.C." Lavirotte's letter to Mr. O'Donnell was delivered the morning after it was written. He put it aside as the work of a man not responsible for his actions; and yet, since it contained the first suggestion that it was possible his business might be saved, he felt a slight tenderness towards it, as a man, whose powers are altogether small, out of proportion to his ambition, feels a tenderness towards the one person who believes in his strength. Immediately after it became generally known that Vernon and Son had stopped payment, Mr. O'Donnell had asked a few of his best friends to come and advise him as to his position. He explained to them that as far as the business in Rathclare was concerned, he was perfectly solvent and capable of carrying it on, but that, as he understood the affairs of Vernon and Son were in a desperate and disgraceful way, and as the company was unlimited, he should be certainly ruined by the "calls." He would, he told them, be quite content to lose all the money he had invested in Vernon and Son, if he might only keep on the Rathclare business as it was going; but that, of course, he was liable to the creditors of the bank up to the very last penny he had, and the chances were a thousand to one that, when Vernon and Son were completely wound up, he would find himself as poor as the poorest man in the parish. Then he asked what they would recommend him to do with respect to the business. They tried to persuade him that things were sure to turn out much better than he anticipated, and they advised him to keep the business running exactly as it now was.