The parliamentary committee pursued their animated inquiries respecting the Limehouse bridge all through the sultry month of July. How Mr. Vigil must have hated Mr. Nogo, and the M'Carthy Desmond! how sick he must have been of that eternal witness who, with imperturbable effrontery, answered the 2,250 questions put to him without admitting anything! To Mr. Vigil it was all mere nonsense, sheer waste of time. Had he been condemned to sit for eight days in close contiguity to the clappers of a small mill, he would have learnt as much as he did from the witnesses before the committee. Nevertheless he went through it and did not lose his temper. He smiled sweetly on Mr. Nogo every morning, and greeted the titled Irishman with his easy familiar nod, as though the continued sitting of this very committee was of all things to him the most desirable. Such is Mr. Vigil's peculiar tact, such his special talent; these are the gifts--gifts by no means ordinary--which have made him Right Honourable, and recommended him to the confidence of successive badgers. But though the committee was uninteresting to Mr. Vigil, it was not so to the speculative inhabitants of Limehouse, or to the credulous shopkeepers of Rotherhithe. On the evening of the day on which Mr. Blocks was examined, the shares went up 20 per cent; and when his evidence was published _in extenso_ the next Saturday morning by the _Capel Court Share-buyer_, a periodical which served for Bible and Prayer-book, as well as a Compendium of the Whole Duty of Man, to Undy Scott and his friends, a further rise in the price of this now valuable property was the immediate consequence. Now, then, was the time for Alaric to sell and get out of his difficulties if ever he could do so. Shares which he bought for 30s. were now worth nearly £2 10s. He was strongly of opinion that they would fall again, and that the final result of the committee would leave them of a less value than their original purchase-money, and probably altogether valueless. He could not, however, act in the matter without consulting Undy, so closely linked were they in the speculation; and even at the present price his own shares would not enable him to pay back the full amount of what he had taken. The joint property of the two was, however, at its present market price, worth £12,000--£10,000 would make him a free man. He was perfectly willing to let Undy have the full use of the difference in amount; nay, he was ready enough to give it to him altogether, if by so doing he could place the whole of his ward's money once more in safety. With the power of offering such a douceur to his friend's rapacity, he flattered himself that he might have a chance of being successful. He was thus prepared to discuss the matter with his partner.