When Jos. Larkin presented this little order, it was in the handsome square room in which Captain Lake transacted business--a lofty apartment, wainscoted in carved oak, and with a great stone mantelpiece, with the Wylder arms, projecting in bold relief, in the centre, and a florid scroll, with 'RESURGAM' standing forth as sharp as the day it was chiselled nearly three hundred years before. There was some other business--Brandon business--to be talked over first; and that exhausted, Mr. Larkin sat as usual, with one long thigh crossed upon the other--his arm thrown over the back of his chair, and his tall, bald head a little back, and his small mild eyes twinkling through their pink lids on the enigmatical captain, who had entered upon the march of ambition in a spirit so audacious and conquering. 'I had a line from Mr. Mark Wylder yesterday afternoon, as usual without any address but the postmark;' and good Mr. Larkin laughed a mild, little patient laugh, and lifted his open hand, and shook his head. 'It really is growing too absurd--a mere order upon you to hand me 200_l._ How I'm to dispose of it, I have not the faintest notion.' And he laughed again; at the same time he gracefully poked the little note, between two fingers, to Captain Lake, who glanced full on him, for a second, as he took it. 'And how is Mark?' enquired Lake, with his odd, sly smile, as he scrawled a little endorsement on the order. 'Does he say anything?' 'No; absolutely nothing--he's a very strange client!' said Larkin, laughing again. 'There can be no objection, of course, to your reading it; and he thinks--he thinks--he'll be here soon again--oh, here it is.' Mr. Larkin had been fumbling, first in his deep waistcoat, and then in his breast-pocket, as if for the letter, which was locked fast into the iron safe, with Chubb's patent lock, in his office at the Lodge. But it would not have done to have kept a secret from Captain Lake, of Brandon; and therefore his not seeing the note was a mere accident. 'Oh! no--stupid!--that's Mullett and Hock's. I have not got it with me; but it does not signify, for there's nothing in it. I hope I shall soon be favoured with his directions as to what to do with the money.' 'He's an odd fellow; and I don't know how he feels towards me; but on my part there is no feeling, I do assure you, but the natural desire to live on the friendly terms which our ties of family and our position in the county'-- Stanley Lake was writing the cheque for 200_l._ meanwhile, and handed it to Larkin; and as that gentleman penned a receipt, the captain continued--his eyes lowered to the little vellum-bound book in which he was now making an entry:-- 'You have handed me a large sum, Mr. Larkin--3,276_l._ 11_s._ 4_d._ I undertook this, you know, on the understanding that it was not to go on very long; and I find my own business pretty nearly as much as I can manage. Is Wylder at all definite as to when we may expect his return?'