The ’squire shook it off roughly, and raised his haggard, deeply-furrowed face. It was a strong-featured countenance still, and had once been handsome as well, but what it chiefly said to Horace now was that the old man couldn’t stand many more such nights of it as this last had evidently been. “Come, ’squire, I didn’t want to annoy you. I’m sorry if I did.” “You insulted me,” said the old man, with a dignity which quavered into pathos as he added: “I’ve got so low now, by Gawd, that even you can insult me!” Horace smiled at the impracticability of all this. “What the deuce is it all about, anyway?” he asked. “What have you got against me? I’ve always been civil to you, haven’t I?” “You’re no good,” was the justice’s concise explanation. The young man laughed outright. “I daresay you’re right,” he said, pleasantly, as one humors a child. “_Now_ will you come out and have a drink?” “I’ve not been forty-four years at the bar for nothing--” “I should think not! Whole generations of barkeepers can testify to that.” “I can tell,” went on the old man, ignoring the jest, and rising from the bed as he spoke; “I can tell when a man’s got an honest face. I can tell when he means to play fair. And I wouldn’t trust you one inch farther, Mr. Horace Boyce, than I could throw a bull by the tail. I tell you that, sir, straight to your teeth.” Horace, still with the box snugly under his arm, had sauntered out into the dark and silent courtroom. He turned now, half smiling, and said: “Third and last call--_do_ you want a drink?” The old man’s answer was to slam the door in his face with a noise which rang in reverberating echoes through the desolate hall of justice. Horace, still smiling, went away. ***** The morning had lapsed into afternoon, and succeeding hours had brought the first ashen tints of dusk into the winter sky, before the young man completed his examination of the Minster papers. He had taken them to his own room in his father’s house, sending word to the office that he had a cold and would not come down that day; and it was behind a locked door that he had studied the documents which stood for millions. On a sheet of paper he made certain memoranda from time to time, and now that the search was ended, he lighted a fresh cigar, and neatly reduced these to a little tabular statement: [Illustration: 0196]