“It is a matter of life or death with me; it must be attended to, and at once; but who shall be my dupe? From whom can I get the money, by fair means or foul? It is no use trying to get a farthing from my father beyond the yearly allowance I am entitled to, and I have forged his name once too often to think of doing so again, for the last time I did so he threatened to disinherit me. Besides, if such a transaction were to reach the ears of old Sir Richard Warbeck, I doubt not he would scratch my name out of his will, and not leave me a farthing.” “But stay,” he mused. “That good-natured simpleton, Charley Warbeck, will answer my purpose; he often goes out and collects large sums. Suppose I were to steal the amount I want from him. Aye, that’s it; it shall be done. I will kill two birds with one stone. I hate these two Warbecks, both Charley and Ned. I detest the very name of Ned,” said he, writhing with his wound. “I know how it shall be done; I will get Charley disgraced, and then old Sir Richard will disown him. Aye, that’s it.” Thus the villain thought; and yet, as he bade Charley good-night, Redgill smiled, and shook him by the hand as cordially as if he were the truest and best friend in the world. “How innocent he is,” thought Phillip, when left alone, “and how handsome, too! Well, never mind; I care not who suffers so I do not. I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.” And, as he thought of his intended plans against Charley, he grinned like a hyena. “To-morrow shall decide it,” he said, and smiled at the thought of the pit he would dig into which young Warbeck should fall. CHAPTER XXI. THE WOLF AND THE LAMB—A SCOUNDREL OF THE FIRST WATER. Unluckily for himself, it was an evil day when Charley Warbeck first made the acquaintance of Phillip Redgill. Phillip, as all knew, was a great don about town, and maintained a handsome suite of rooms, to which the gayest of the gay resorted. His father was a very wealthy man, so all the world said; a great ship owner, and “a merchant prince of the good city of London.” To be patronized by the son of such a person poor Charley considered “a very fine thing.” “Wasn’t Phillip Redgill one of the sparks of fashion? Did not fair dames (of doubtful virtue, perhaps) smile bewitchingly upon him? Was he not nodded to by this lord and that one? Could he not handle a sword with almost any man?” said Charley, and many others. “And was it not a ‘great thing,’ therefore, to be known to, and to be hand and glove with such a person when I am only a chief clerk in the India House, and nought to depend upon but my own advancement and old Sir Richard’s generosity?” Yes, this was all true; but Charley Warbeck little dreamed of what a cool, conscienceless villain Phillip was, and how he gained the money he sported with so lavishly “about town,” as it was called. It was true that Sir Richard Warbeck’s signature had been forged to a valuable bill, but how it was done no one could tell.