afternoon, and found a lad that you have treated as, and tried to
believe was, your own son, you'd be as bad as me. Every moment I think
of it, it comes out clearer. That woman that lives with me has palmed
that brat of hers on me as my child; and he and she have been
plundering me these years past. The money that woman has made away with
would build a ship, sir. What she's done with it, her master, the
devil, only knows; and I've said nought about it, because she's a
witch, and I was afraid of her. But now I've found her out. She has
stopped the letters that they wrote to me about this boy's forgery, and
that shows she was in it. She shall pack. I won't prosecute her; no.
I've reasons against that; but I'll turn her out in the world without a
sixpence. You see I'm quiet enough now!"

"You're quiet enough," said the lawyer, "and you've stated your case
very well. But are you sure this lad is not your son?"

"If I was sure that he was," said Hawker, "it wouldn't make any
difference, as I know on. Ah, man, you don't know what a rage I'm in.
If I chose, I could put myself into such an infernal passion at this
moment as would bring on a 'plectic fit, and lay me dead on the floor.
But I won't do it, not yet. I'll have another drop of brandy, and sing
you a song. Shall I give 'ee 'Roger a-Maying,' or what'll ye have?"

"I'll have you go to bed, and not take any more brandy," said the
lawyer. "If you sing, get in one of the waiters, and sing to him; he'd
enjoy it. I'm going home, but I shall come to breakfast to-morrow
morning, and find you in a different humour."

"Good night, old mole," said Hawker; "good night, old bat, old
parchment skin, old sixty per cent. Ha, ha! If a wench brings a brat to
thee, old lad, chuck it out o' window, and her after it. Thou can only
get hung for it, man. They can only hang thee once, and that is better
than to keep it and foster it, and have it turn against thee when it
grows up. Good night."

Dickson came to him in the morning, and found him in the same mind.
They settled down to business, and Hawker made a new will. He left all
his property to his cousin (a man he had had a bitter quarrel with for
years), except 100 pounds to his groom, and 200 pounds to Tom
Troubridge, "for an act of civility" (so the words ran), "in reading a
letter for a man who ought to have been his enemy." And when the will
(a very short one) was finished, and the lawyer proposed getting two of
his clerks as wit