"No," said Grimstone, "unless we can see the lady, and make her consent to pay us our 1,250 pounds." "And interest," said Mr Jabez. "And bonus," said Grimstone, "down on the nail." "Which we can't do," said Mr Jabez, shaking his head. "Of course we can't," said Grimstone. "All I wish is that I hadn't let you persuade me into lending him the money--the savings of a whole life." "Oh, I like that!" said Mr Jabez, catching up a pen, and making a mark as if he were correcting Grimstone. "Like it or not, I don't care," said Grimstone, "there it is. Here! boy, my hat." "Going?" said Mr Jabez. "Going! of course I'm going. Think I'm going to stop in this dog-hole, smelling of red-herrings and oil?" "Won't you take something? Try a fig." Mr Grimstone snatched his hat from my hands, gazed at me as if he would have liked to set me to pick up pie, and bounced out of the room. "I don't know which is most unpleasant, Grace," said the old man, "Grimstone or his news. Well, he's gone. Of course, you won't talk about what you've heard. It's a very bad job, though, for me--very-- very. Hi! Mrs Jennings," he cried at the top of the stairs, "half an ounce of best Scotch and Rappee." He tapped with his box on the handrail as he spoke, and having had it replenished, he came back to sit and take pinches, becoming so abstracted and ill at ease, that I rose to go when he was a quarter through the half-ounce. "Going, Grace?" he said. "Ah, I'm bad company to-night, but come again. Let me see, though," he said, fumbling at some letters in his breast-pocket, "I've got a letter here from that bad boy, Peter. Just the same as usual. Tut--tut--oh, here it is. `Remember me to that boy,'--ah, blunder I call it boy--`Antony Grace. Tell him I shall come to see him if ever I get two London.' There's a fellow for you," said Mr Jabez, "spells `to' like the figure 2. But he always did want a deal of correcting, did Peter. Good-night, good-night." And I went my way, sadly troubled at heart about Miss Carr and Mr Lister, and wondering whether she would, after all, refuse to be his wife. CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN. AN ANGRY PARTING. I had four days to wait before going to Westmouth Street to receive my usual welcome--at least, not my usual welcome, for though she seemed to grow more sad and pale, Miss Carr's reception of me increased each time in warmth, till at last, had I been a younger brother she could not have been more kind. I was a good deal troubled at heart about what I knew, and puzzled myself as to my duties in the case. Ought I to take Mr Hallett into my confidence, and ask his advice, or ought I to tell Miss Carr herself? It was hard to settle, and I have often thought since of how strangely I was brought at so young an age into the consideration of the weighty matters of life of those with whom I was in contact.