n to him. This made him unhappy, and doubly
disappointed him. He had neither got the wife that he had expected
nor the fortune. But he still thought that the fortune must come if
he would only hold on to the wife which he had got.

And then everything had gone badly with him since his marriage. He
was apt, when thinking over his affairs, to attribute all this to the
fears and hesitation and parsimony of Sexty Parker. None of his late
ventures with Sexty Parker had been successful. And now Sexty was in
a bad condition, very violent, drinking hard, declaring himself to
be a ruined man, and swearing that if this and that were not done
he would have bitter revenge. Sexty still believed in the wealth of
his partner's father-in-law, and still had some hope of salvation
from that source. Lopez would declare to him, and up to this very
time persevered in protesting, that salvation was to be found in
Bios. If Sexty would only risk two or three thousand pounds more
upon Bios,--or his credit to that amount, failing the immediate
money,--things might still be right. "Bios be d----," said Sexty,
uttering a string of heavy imprecations. On that morning he had been
trusting to native produce rather than to the new African spirit. But
now as the Guatemala scheme really took form and loomed on Lopez's
eyesight as a thing that might be real, he endeavoured to keep out of
Sexty's way. But in vain; Sexty too had heard of Guatemala, and in
his misery hunted Lopez about the city. "By G----, I believe you're
afraid to come to Little Tankard Yard," he said one day, having
caught his victim under the equestrian statue in front of the
Exchange.

"What is the good of my coming when you will do nothing when I am
there?"

"I'll tell you what it is, Lopez,--you're not going out of the
country about this mining business, if I know it."

"Who said I was?"

"I'll put a spoke in your wheel there, my man. I'll give a written
account of all the dealings between us to the Directors. By G----,
they shall know their man."

"You're an ass, Sexty, and always were. Look here. If I can carry
on as though I were going to this place, I can draw L5000 from
old Wharton. He has already offered it. He has treated me with a
stinginess that I never knew equalled. Had he done what I had a right
to expect, you and I would have been rich men now. But at last I have
got a hold upon him up to L5000. As you and I stand, pretty nearly
the whole of that will go to you.