om your Lordship."

"Well, I don't know--that is, I half suspect--"

"Far better, infinitely better, my Lord; your own tact, your Lordship's
good taste--Oh dear me, one o'clock already, and I have an appointment!"
And with the most profuse apologies for a hurried departure, and as many
excuses to be conveyed to her Ladyship, Mr. Twining disappeared.

Although Twining's reluctance to carry into execution the tone of policy
he suggested did not escape Beecher's penetration, the policy itself
seemed highly recommendable. Grog out of Europe,--Grog beyond the seas,
collecting taxes, imprisoning skippers, hunting runaway negroes, or
flogging Caffres,--it mattered not, so that he never crossed his sight
again. To be sure, it was not exactly the moment to persuade Davis to
expatriate himself when his prospects at home began to brighten, and he
saw his daughter a peeress. Still, Dunn was a fellow of such marvellous
readiness, such astonishing resources! If any man could "hit off" the
way here, it was he. And then, how fortunate! Grog was eagerly pressing
Beecher to be accredited to this same Davenport Dunn; he asked that he
might be sent to confer and negotiate with him about the pending action
at law. What an admirable opportunity was this, then, for Dunn to sound
Davis and, if occasion served, tempt him with an offer of place! Besides
these reasons, valid and sound so far as they went, there was another
impulse that never ceased to urge Beecher forward, and this was a vague
shadowy sort of impression that if he could only succeed in his plan
he should have outwitted Grog, and "done" _him_. There was a sense of
triumph associated with this thought that made his heart swell with
pride. In his passion for double-dealing, he began to think how he could
effect his present purpose,--by what zigzag and circuitous road, through
what tangled scheme of duplicity and trick. "I have it,--I have it,"
cried he at length; and he hastened to his dressing-room, and, having
locked the door, he opened his writing-desk and sat down to write. But
it is not at the end of a chapter I can presume to insert his Lordship's
correspondence.

CHAPTER XXVII. OVERREACHINGS

Beecher did not amongst his gifts possess the pen of a ready writer; but
there was a strange symmetry observable between the composition and
the manual part. The lines were irregular, the letters variously sized,
erasures frequent, blots everywhere, while the spelling displayed