When can you start? There is a
tidal train at eight o'clock this evening, and the man is now in Naples.
I have the papers here all ready: you can study them on the way.'

'I will start to-night,' I answered.

'Thank you, Calvotti, thank you,' he said heartily. 'Do you remember how
I excused myself for overturning that little girl who was carrying the
first picture I ever saw of yours to your estimable uncle round the
corner, as you called him?'

'Yes. There was a man in the street you were anxious to speak to, and
you jumped from a cab to catch him, and lost sight of him through the
accident.'

'That was the man I want you to see--Charles Grammont.'

I had only time to catch at the name and weave Cecilia and her sister
into this romance with one throw of the shuttle, when there came a knock
at the door.

'Come in,' I said. The door opened, and a man entered. Seeing my patron
and myself, he drew back.

'I have made a mistake,' he murmured awkwardly. 'I wish to find Miss
Grammont. I was told she lived here.'

'Talk of the devil!' cried my patron. 'Charles Grammont!'

'That is my name,' said the new-comer, standing awkwardly in the
doorway. 'You have the advantage of me, sir.'

'H'm!' said my patron, returning to the manner he had first worn in my
presence. 'Likely to keep it too. Good-day, Calvotti. You'll remember
that little commission. Things may perhaps be easier than I thought they
would be.' He muttered this to himself so that the new-comer did not
hear him. He pushed uncourteously past the young man and went out.

'You will find Miss Grammont upstairs, sir,' I said. 'If you are Mr.
Charles Grammont, the brother of the ladies upstairs, I shall be glad to
speak to you in an hour's time, on a matter of much advantage to you.'

The young man had a disagreeable swagger and a bloated face. His swagger
was intended to hide the discomfiture in the midst of which that sort of
man's soul lives always.

'If you have any thing to say to me,' he answered, still holding the
handle of the door, 'you can say it now, or save yourself the trouble of
saying it at all.'

'Sir,' I replied with some asperity, 'it is not a matter which concerns
me at all, but you.

Your late father left some money in which you are interested, that is
all.'

He looked bewildered.

'My father left no money,' he stammered.

'Your father left a considerable sum,' I answered, 'and if you will
call upon me in one hour from now I will in