“If you stop at the Nelson’s Arms at Uxotter, you will hear of me. I can be sent for, when I will tell you more. “Yours, very obediently and humbly, “+Josiah Crinkles+.” “P.S. I enclose you Dr. Johnson’s definition of a vampyre, which is as follows: “+Vampyre+ (a German blood-sucker)—by which you perceive how many vampyres, from time immemorial, must have been well entertained at the expense of John Bull, at the court of St. James, where nothing hardly is to be met with but German blood-suckers.” • • • • • [Illustration: Crinkles reads the letter to the admiral.] The lawyer ceased to read, and the amazed look with which he glanced at the face of Admiral Bell would, under any other circumstances, have much amused him. His mind, however, was by far too much engrossed with a consideration of the danger of Charles Holland, his nephew, to be amused at anything; so, when he found that the little lawyer said nothing, he bellowed out,— “Well, sir?” “We—we—well,” said the attorney. “I’ve sent for you, and here you are, and here I am, and here’s Jack Pringle. What have you got to say?” “Just this much,” said Mr. Crinkles, recovering himself a little, “just this much, sir, that I never saw that letter before in all my life.” “You—never—saw—it?” “Never.” “Didn’t you write it?” “On my solemn word of honour, sir, I did not.” Jack Pringle whistled, and the admiral looked puzzled. Like the admiral in the song, too, he “grew paler,” and then Mr. Crinkles added,— “Who has forged my name to a letter such as this, I cannot imagine. As for writing to you, sir, I never heard of your existence, except publicly, as one of those gallant officers who have spent a long life in nobly fighting their country’s battles, and who are entitled to the admiration and the applause of every Englishman.” Jack and the admiral looked at each other in amazement, and then the latter exclaimed,— “What! This from a lawyer?” “A lawyer, sir,” said Crinkles, “may know how to appreciate the deeds of gallant men, although he may not be able to imitate them. That letter, sir, is a forgery, and I now leave you, only much gratified at the incident which has procured me the honour of an interview with a gentleman, whose name will live in the history of his country. Good day, sir! Good day!” “No! I’m d——d if you go like that,” said Jack, as he sprang to the door, and put his back against it. “You shall take a glass with me in honour of the wooden walls of Old England, d——e, if you was twenty lawyers.” “That’s right, Jack,” said the admiral. “Come, Mr. Crinkles, I’ll think, for your sake, there may be two decent lawyers in the world, and you one of them. We must have a bottle of the best wine the ship—I mean the house—can afford together.”