As to William Henry himself, the strides he had made in Mr. Erin’s favour, thanks to that ‘find’ of his in the ‘Templar’s’ chambers, was something magical, as if he had got seven-league boots on. His father even called him Samuel, as though he were verily and indeed that son he had lost with all the hopes that were wrapped up in him. It must be confessed, however, that this may have been partly owing to the birth of new hopes; William Henry, indeed, though he had twice visited his friend in the Temple since that one momentous occasion, had found nothing very new—or rather very old—there; but on the other hand, what Mr. Erin justly thought a great piece of good fortune, and one that showed promise of much more, had befallen him. On looking over his patron’s papers he came across a deed of no great antiquity in truth, but which to that gentleman himself was especially valuable, since it established his right to a certain property that had long been the subject of litigation. For this, something was certainly due to the young man himself, since, but for his legal learning and knowledge of the nature of the document, he might easily have passed it over as being of no importance. It was, therefore, not so very surprising that the old gentleman, in a sudden glow of gratitude, for which his mind, from its natural leaning towards the young fellow was, as it were, ‘ready laid,’ had given him a promise that whatever he might henceforth discover among his papers of general interest should, by way of recompense for the service he had rendered him, become his own. Gladly as William Henry himself doubtless received this mark of his patron’s favour, his joy could hardly have exceeded that of Mr. Erin when the news was communicated to him. It must need be confessed, however, that his gratitude was not wholly dissociated from a sense of favours to come. ‘Why, my dear lad,’ he cried, ‘this note of hand of Shakespeare’s, priceless as it is, may be yet outdone by what remains to be discovered. In this strange treasure-trove of which you speak, of the contents of which, both as to their nature and value, their owner seems to be wholly ignorant, there may be, for all we know, whole letters in Shakespeare’s handwriting, copies of his plays, a sonnet or two, possibly even the skeleton of some play which he never filled in with flesh-and-blood characters, the hint of some divine tragedy—gracious Goodness!’ and Mr. Erin threw up his hands in speechless ecstasy, as though a glimpse of heaven had been vouchsafed to him of which it was not lawful for him to discourse further.