Sarah Rumble, as we know, had a defined fear of Mr. Dingwell, but also a vague terror; for there was a great deal about him ill-omened and mysterious. There was a curiosity, too, active within her, intense and rather ghastly, about all that concerned him. She did not care, therefore, to get up and go away from the small hole in the carpet which she was darning on the lobby, and through the door she heard faintly some talk she didn't understand, and Mr. Dingwell's voice, at a high pitch, said-- "D---- you, sir, do you think I'm a fool? Don't you think I've _your letter_, and a copy of my own? If we draw swords, egad, sir, mine's the longer and sharper, as you'll feel. Ha, ha, ha!" "Oh, lawk!" gasped Sarah Rumble, standing up, and expecting the clash of rapiers. "Your face, sir, is as white and yellow--you'll excuse me--as an old turban. I beg your pardon; but I want you to understand that I see you're frightened, and that I won't be bullied _by_ you." "I don't suppose, sir, you meditate totally ruining yourself," said Mr. Larkin, with dignity. "I tell you, sir, if anything goes wrong with me, I'll make a clean breast of it--_everything_--ha, ha, ha!--upon my honour--and we two shall grill together." Larkin had no idea he was going in for so hazardous and huge a game when he sat down to play. His vision was circumscribed, his prescience small. He looked at the beast he had imported, and wished him in a deep grave in Scutari, with a turbaned-stone over his head, the scheme quashed, and the stakes drawn. But wishing would not do. The spirit was evoked--in nothing more manageable than at first; on the contrary, rather more insane. Nerve was needed, subtlety, patience, and he must manage him. "Why the devil did you bring me here, sir, if you were not prepared to treat me properly? You know my circumstances, and you want to practise on my misfortunes, you vile rogue, to mix me up in your fraudulent machinations." "Pray, sir, not so loud. Do--_do_ command yourself," remonstrated Larkin, almost affectionately. "Do you think I'm come all this way, at the risk of my life, to be _your_ slave, you shabby, canting attorney? I'd better be where I was, or in kingdom come. By Allah! sir, you _have_ me, and I'm your _master_, and you shan't buy my soul for a piastre." There came a loud knock at the hall-door, and if it had been a shot and killed them both, the debaters in the drawing-room could not have been more instantaneously breathless. Down glided Sarah Rumble, who had been expecting this visit, to pay the taxman. And she had hardly taken his receipt, when Mr. Larkin, very pink, endeavouring to smile in his discomfiture, and observing with a balmy condescension, "A sweet day, Mrs. Rumble," appeared in the hall, shook his ears a little, and adjusted his hat, and went forth, and Rosemary Court saw him no more for some time. CHAPTER IX. IN VERNEY HOUSE.