SO Cleve Verney returned direct to England, and his friends thought his trip to Paris, short as it was, had done him a world of good. What an alterative and tonic a little change of air sometimes is!

The Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney was, in his high, thin-minded way, at last tolerably content, and more pompous and respected than ever. The proof of his succession to the peerage of Verney was in a perfectly satisfactory state. He would prove it, and take his seat next session. He would add another to the long list of Lord Viscounts Verney of Malory to be found in the gold and scarlet chronicle of such dignities. He had arranged with the trustees for a provisional possession of Verney House, the great stone mansion which glorifies one side of the small parallelogram called Verney Square. Already contractors had visited it and explored its noble chambers and long corridors, with foot-rule and note-book, getting together material for tenders, and Cleve had already a room there when he came up to town. Some furniture had been got in, and some servants were established there also, and so the stream of life had begun to transfuse itself from the old town residence of the Hon. Kiffyn Fulke Verney into these long-forsaken channels.

Here, one morning, called a gentleman named Dingwell, whom Cleve Verney, happening to be in town, desired the servant to show into the room where he sat, with his breakfast, and his newspapers about him.

The tall old man entered, with a slight stoop, leering, Cleve thought, a little sarcastically over his shoulder as he did so.

Mr. Dingwell underwent Mr. Cleve Verney’s reception, smiling oddly, under his white eyebrows, after his wont.

“I suspect some little mistake, isn’t there?” said he, in his cold, harsh, quiet tones. “You can hardly be the brother of my old friend, Arthur Verney. I had hoped to see Mr. Kiffyn Fulke Verney — I— eh?”

“I’m his nephew.”

“Oh! nephew? Yes — another generation — yes, of course. I called to see the Honourable Kiffyn Fulke Verney. I was not able to attend the consultation, or whatever you call it. You know I’m your principal witness, eh? Dingwell’s my name.”

“Oh, to be sure — I beg pardon, Mr. Dingwell,” said Cleve, who, by one of those odd slips of memory, which sometimes occur, had failed to connect the name with the case, on its turning up thus unexpectedly.

“I hope your admirable uncle, Kiffyn Verney, is, at all events, alive and approachable,” said the old man, glancing grimly about the room; “though perhaps you’re his next heir, and the hope is hardly polite.”

This impertinence of Mr. Dingwell’s, Mr. Cleve Verney, who knew his importance, and had heard something of his odd temper, resented only by asking him to be seated.

“That,” said the old man, with a vicious laugh and a smirk, also angry, “is a liberty which I was about to take uninvited, by right of my years and fatigue, eh?”

And he sat down with the air of a man who is rather nettled than pleased by an attention.

“And what about Mr. Kiffyn Verney?” he asked, sharply.

“My uncle is in the country,” answered Cleve, who would have liked to answer the fool according to his folly, but he succumbed to the necessity, inculcated with much shrewdness, garnished with some references to Scripture, by Mr. Jos. Larkin, of indulging the eccentricities of Mr. Dingwell’s temper a little.

“Then he is alive? I’ve heard such an account of the Verneys, their lives are so brittle, and snap so suddenly; my poor friend Arthur told me, and that Jew fellow, Levi, here, who seems so intimate with the family — d — n him! — says the same: no London house likes to insure them. Well, I see you don’t like it: no one does; the smell of the coffin, sir; time enough when we are carrion, and fill it. Ha, ha, ha!”

“Yes, sir, quite,” said Cleve, drily.

“No young man likes the sight of that stinking old lantern-jawed fellow, who shall be nameless, looking over his spade so slily; but the best way is to do as I’ve done. Since you must meet him one day, go up to him, and make his acquaintance, and shake hands; and egad! when you’ve grown a little bit intimate, he’s not half so disgusting, and sometimes he’s even a little bit funny.”

“If I were thinking of the profession of a sexton, or an undertaker, I might,” began Cleve, who felt a profound disgust of this old Mr. Dingwell, “but as I don’t, and since by the time it comes to my turn, I shall be pretty well past seeing and smelling ——”

“Don’t be too sure of that,” said Mr. Dingwell, with one of his ugly smirks. “Some cheerful people think not, you know. But it isn’t about such matters that I want to trouble you; in fact, I came to say a word to your uncle; but as I can’t see him, you can tell him, and urge it more eloquently too, than I can. You and he are both orators by profession; and tell him he must give me five hundred pounds immediately.”

“Five hundred pounds! Why?” said Cleve, with a scornful surprise.

“Because I want it,” answered the old gentleman, squaring himself, and with the corner of his mouth drawn oddly in, his white head a little on one side, and his eyebrows raised, with altogether an air of vicious defiance.

“You have had your allowance raised very much, sir — it is an exorbitant allowance — what reason can you now urge for this request?” answered Cleve.

“The same reason, sir, precisely. If I don’t get it I shall go away, re infecta, and leave you to find out proof of the death how you may.”

Cleve was very near giving this unconscionable old extortioner a bit of his mind, and ordering him out of the house on the instant. But Mr. Larkin had been so very urgent on the point, that he commanded himself.

“I hardly think, sir, you can be serious,” said Cleve.

“Egad, sir! you’ll find it a serious matter if you don’t; for, upon my soul, unless I’m paid, and well paid for it, I’ll depose to nothing.”

“That’s plain speaking, at all events,” said Mr. Cleve Verney.

“Oh! sir, I’ll speak more plainly still,” said Mr. Dingwell, with a short sarcastic bow. “I never mince matters; life is too short for circumlocutions.”

“Verney life, at all events, by your account, sir, and I don’t desire them. I shall mention the matter to my uncle today in my letter, but I really can&rsq............