rog, savagely.

"Dunn told me as much. But he does n't like to treat with them, because
the difficulty about the Irish estate would still remain unsettled."

"Then what am I to do? How shall I act?" asked Grog.

"It's not an easy matter to advise upon," said Hankes, thoughtfully,
"for Dunn holds to one maxim with invariable tenacity, which is never
to open any negotiation with a stranger which cannot be completed in
one interview. If you couldn't begin by showing the bank-notes, he'd not
discuss the question at all."

Grog arose and walked the room with hasty steps: he tried to seem calm,
but in the impatient gesture with which he threw his cigar into the fire
might be read the agitation he could not conquer nor conceal.

"What could you yourself do with him, Hankes?" said he, at last.

"Nothing,--absolutely nothing," said the other. "He never in his life
permitted a subordinate to treat, except on his own behalf; that was a
fixed law with him."

"Curse the fellow!" burst out Davis, "he made rules and laws as if the
world was all his own."

"Well, he managed to have it pretty much his own way, it must be
confessed," said Hankes, with a half-smile.

"He is to be in town to-morrow, you said," muttered Grog, half aloud.
"Where does he stop?"

"This time it will be at Calvert's, Upper Brook Street. His house in
Piccadilly is ready, but he 'll not go there at present."

"He makes a mystery of everything, so far as I can see," said Grog,
angrily. "He comes up by the express-train, does n't he?" grumbled he,
after a pause.

"If he has n't a special engine," said Hankes. "He always, however, has
his own _coupe_ furnished and fitted up for himself and never, by any
chance, given to any one else. There 's a capital bed in it, and a
desk, where he writes generally the whole night through, and a small
cooking-apparatus, where he makes his coffee, so that no servant ever
interrupts him at his work. Indeed, except from some interruption, or
accident on the line, the guard would not dare to open his door. Of
course _his_ orders are very strictly obeyed. I remember one night Lord
Jedburg sent in his name, and Dunn returned for answer, 'I can't see
him.'"

"And did the Prime Minister put up with that?" asked Davis.

"What could he do?" said the other, with a shrug of the shoulder.

"If I were Lord Jedburg, I'd have unkennelled him, I promise you _that_,
Simmy. But here, it's nigh twelve o'clock, and I have a mass of th