By anything any one might say, for the matter of that. He was full of that thought as he rode home after leaving Mr. Lingard. He had played his cards well in his wildest dreams, but he had never hoped to climb to the height at which he had actually arrived. Wealth? He did not spend a fifth part of his income. His old mother had her villa at Kreuznech, where she lived with his sister Lisbett, while Ernestine was married to Domhardt, who, thanks to him and his lent capital, was doing so well as a wine-grower at Hochheim. Fritz seemed to have settled down at last, and to be establishing for himself a business as Domhardt's agent in Melbourne. There was no one else of his own blood to support. There were others who had claims on him, but those claims were allowed and provided for, and there was still more money than he knew with what to do. Position? Not much doubt about that. Men of the highest rank in the City allowed his status to be equal to their own; and as to his own house, the other partners had practically acknowledged that he was its backbone and their superior. For instance, when there was that question, a month ago, about the manner in which their New York agency was conducted, to whom did they refer but to him? If Rufus P. Clamborough had turned out a rogue, he would have had to go out, he thought, to settle the business there. Yes, to have the money and to have the position were both pleasant things. To gain them he sacrificed nearly all his life, and certainly he needed some little recreation. What a wonderful pretty girl that was at Rose Cottage, and how extraordinary that he should have discovered old John Calverley there! How lucky, too, that he should have met Lingard! The great dinner-party in Great Walpole-street was to be on Friday. On Friday, then, he would ride out by Hendon once again. But Mr. Wetter did not ride out to Hendon on Friday, as he intended. On that Friday night he slept at the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, going off in the tender at 8.30 the next morning to the Cunard steamer China, lying in the Mersey, and not returning to England for nearly six months. On the evening of his meeting Mr. Lingard, on his arrival at South Audley-street, he found a telegram which had been forwarded to him from the City, informing him that Rufus P. Clamborough had by no means come out as rightly as was anticipated, and that it was imperative that some one should go out at once and look after the New York agency. Mr. Wetter was, above all things, a man of business, and he knew that that some one was himself, so he packed his portmanteau and went off. And finding an immense deal of business to be done, and life in New York city anything but disagreeable, he remained there until he had placed the affairs of Stutterheim and Wetter on a satisfactory footing, and then, and not till then, he took ship and came home.