ld do. I suppose," he said, at
length addressing me, "if Master Wilford were taken into custody on a
magistrate's warrant at half-past four a.m., that would suit your ideas
very nicely? I can so arrange the matter that Wilford will never be able
to trace the laying the information to our door."

"But how can you avoid that?" inquired I.

"Why, if you must know," replied Freddy, "I am acquainted with a man
who would give a hundred pounds any day to stop our friend Stephen from
fighting a duel."

"What, do you know Wilford then?" asked I.

"_Ray-ther_," was the reply, accompanied by a very significant
wink--"just a _very few_--I should say we're not entire strangers,
though I have never enjoyed the honour of much personal intercourse with
him; but I do not so deeply regret that, as, from your account, it seems
rather a dangerous privilege."

"How in the world do you know anything about him?"

"Oh! it's a long story, but the chief points of it are these:
The aforesaid Mr. Wilford, if he can continue to exist till he is
five-and-twenty, comes into five thousand pounds a year; but if we don't
interfere, and Harry Oaklands has the luck to send a bullet into him
to-morrow morning, away it all goes to the next heir. Wilford is now
three-and-twenty, and the trustees make him a liberal allowance of eight
hundred pounds per annum, on the strength of which he spends between two
thousand pounds and three thousand pounds: of course, in order ~207~~to
do this, he has to raise money on his expectancies. About two months
ago he wanted to sell the contingent reversion of a large estate in
Yorkshire, from which the greater part of his future income is to be
derived; and a client of ours thought of buying it--ergo, we were set to
work upon the matter: whilst we were investigating his right, title, and
all that sort of thing, lo and behold! a heavy claim, amounting to some
thousands, is made upon the property--by whom, do you think, of all
people in the world?--none other than our old acquaintance, Richard
Cumberland!"

"Good heavens!" exclaimed I, "how strange!"

"Cumberland," continued Freddy, "has become somehow connected with a
lot of bill-brokers,--low stock-jobbers,--in fact, a very shady set of
people, with whom, however, in our profession, we cannot avoid being
sometimes brought into contact; he appears, indeed, himself to be a sort
of cross between black-leg and money-lender, improved by a considerable
dash of the gambler