id Mervyn, haughtily.

The clerk smiled a strange sort of smile.

'But I've already pledged my sacred honour not to mention your name or
betray your secret.'

'Well, just have patience, and maybe I'll not keep you long; but 'tis no
trifle for a man to make up his mind to what's before _me_, maybe.'

After a pause, Irons resumed--

'Well, Sir, you see, Mr. Archer sat down by the fire and smoked a pipe,
and was as easy and pleased, you'd say, to look on him, as a man need
be; and he called for cards when my lord wanted them, and whatever else
he needed, making himself busy and bustling--as I afterwards thought to
make them both remember well that he was in the room with them.

'In and out of the chamber I went with one thing or another, and every
time I passed Mr. Beauclerc's room I grew more and more frightened; and,
truth to say, I was a scared man, and I don't know how I got through my
business; every minute expecting to hear the outcry from the dead man's
room.

'Mr. Edwards had an appointment, he said--nothing good, you may be
sure--they were a rake-helly set--saving your presence. Neither he nor
my lord had lost, I believe, anything to signify to one another; and my
lord, your father, made no difficulty about his going away, but began to
call again for Mr. Beauclerc, and to curse him--as a half-drunk man
will, making a power of noise; and, "Where's he gone to?" and, "Where's
his room?" and, "---- him, he shall play, or fight me." You see, Sir, he
had lost right and left that time, and was an angry man, and the liquor
made him half mad; and I don't think he knew rightly what he was doing.
And out on the lobby with him swearing he should give him his revenge,
or he'd know the reason why.

"Where's Mr. Beauclerc's room?" he shouts to me, as if he'd strike me; I
did not care a rush about that, but I was afraid to say--it stuck in my
throat like--and I stared at Mr. Archer; and he calls to the
chamber-maid, that was going up stairs, "Where does Mr. Beauclerc lie?"
and she, knowing him, says at once, "The Flower de luce," and pointed to
the room; and with that, my lord staggered up to the door, with his
drawn sword in hand, bawling on him to come out, and fumbling with the
pin; he could not open it; so he knocked it open with a kick, and in
with him, and Mr. Archer at his elbow, soothing him like; and I, I don't
know how--behind him.

'By this time he had worked himself into a mad passion, and says he,
"Curse y