"My uncle is in the country," answered Cleve, who would have liked to answer the fool according to his folly, but he succumbed to the necessity, inculcated with much shrewdness, garnished with some references to Scripture, by Mr. Jos. Larkin, of indulging the eccentricities of Mr. Dingwell's temper a little. "Then he _is_ alive? I've heard such an account of the Verneys, their lives are so brittle, and snap so suddenly; my poor friend Arthur told me, and that Jew fellow, Levi, here, who seems so intimate with the family--d--n him!--says the same: no London house likes to insure them. Well, I see you don't like it: no one does; the smell of the coffin, sir; time enough when we are carrion, and fill it. Ha, ha, ha!" "Yes, sir, _quite_," said Cleve, drily. "No young man likes the sight of that stinking old lantern-jawed fellow, who shall be nameless, looking over his spade so slily; but the best way is to do as I've done. Since you must meet him _one_ day, go up to him, and make his acquaintance, and shake hands; and egad! when you've grown a little bit intimate, he's not half so disgusting, and sometimes he's even a little bit funny." "If I were thinking of the profession of a sexton, or an undertaker, I might," began Cleve, who felt a profound disgust of this old Mr. Dingwell, "but as I don't, and since by the time it comes to my turn, I shall be pretty well past seeing and smelling----" "Don't be too sure of that," said Mr. Dingwell, with one of his ugly smirks. "Some cheerful people think _not_, you know. But it isn't about such matters that I want to trouble you; in fact, I came to say a word to your uncle; but as I can't see him, you can tell him, and urge it more eloquently too, than I can. You and he are both orators by profession; and tell him he must give me five hundred pounds immediately." "Five hundred pounds! _Why?_" said Cleve, with a scornful surprise. "Because I want it," answered the old gentleman, squaring himself, and with the corner of his mouth drawn oddly in, his white head a little on one side, and his eyebrows raised, with altogether an air of vicious defiance. "You have had your allowance raised very much, sir--it is an exorbitant allowance--what reason can you now urge for this request?" answered Cleve. "The _same_ reason, sir, precisely. If I don't get it I shall go away, _re infecta_, and leave you to find out proof of the death how you may." Cleve was very near giving this unconscionable old extortioner a bit of his mind, and ordering him out of the house on the instant. But Mr. Larkin had been so very urgent on the point, that he commanded himself. "I hardly think, sir, you can be serious," said Cleve. "Egad, sir! you'll find it a serious matter if you don't; for, upon my soul, unless I'm paid, and _well_ paid for it, I'll depose to nothing." "That's plain speaking, at all events," said Mr. Cleve Verney.