e paper--ha'n't you come here to
see me about it?"

"No," said the Scotchman, with some surprise.

"Surely you are the man," went on Henchard insistingly, "who arranged to
come and see me? Joshua, Joshua, Jipp--Jopp--what was his name?"

"You're wrong!" said the young man. "My name is Donald Farfrae. It is
true I am in the corren trade--but I have replied to no advertisement,
and arranged to see no one. I am on my way to Bristol--from there to the
other side of the warrld, to try my fortune in the great wheat-growing
districts of the West! I have some inventions useful to the trade, and
there is no scope for developing them heere."

"To America--well, well," said Henchard, in a tone of disappointment, so
strong as to make itself felt like a damp atmosphere. "And yet I could
have sworn you were the man!"

The Scotchman murmured another negative, and there was a silence, till
Henchard resumed: "Then I am truly and sincerely obliged to you for the
few words you wrote on that paper."

"It was nothing, sir."

"Well, it has a great importance for me just now. This row about my
grown wheat, which I declare to Heaven I didn't know to be bad till the
people came complaining, has put me to my wits' end. I've some hundreds
of quarters of it on hand; and if your renovating process will make it
wholesome, why, you can see what a quag 'twould get me out of. I saw
in a moment there might be truth in it. But I should like to have it
proved; and of course you don't care to tell the steps of the process
sufficiently for me to do that, without my paying ye well for't first."

The young man reflected a moment or two. "I don't know that I have any
objection," he said. "I'm going to another country, and curing bad
corn is not the line I'll take up there. Yes, I'll tell ye the whole of
it--you'll make more out of it heere than I will in a foreign country.
Just look heere a minute, sir. I can show ye by a sample in my
carpet-bag."

The click of a lock followed, and there was a sifting and rustling;
then a discussion about so many ounces to the bushel, and drying, and
refrigerating, and so on.

"These few grains will be sufficient to show ye with," came in the young
fellow's voice; and after a pause, during which some operation seemed
to be intently watched by them both, he exclaimed, "There, now, do you
taste that."

"It's complete!--quite restored, or--well--nearly."

"Quite enough restored to make good seconds out of it," said