sir,--ay, and more than once. You may remember that vein of yellow
marble--giallo antico, they call it--found on Martin's property--That's
his knock; here he comes now," cried he, hurrying away to meet his
master, and leaving the story of his blunder unrelated. "All right,"
said Clowes, re-entering, hastily; "you can go in now. He seems in a
precious humor to-night," added he, in a low whisper; "something or
other has gone wrong with him."

Driscoll had scarcely closed the inner door of cloth that formed
the last security of Davenport Dunn's privacy, when he perceived the
correctness of Mr. Clowes's information. Dunn's brow was dark and
clouded, his face slightly flushed, and his eye restless and excited.

"What is it so very pressing, Driscoll, that could n't wait till
to-morrow?" said he, peevishly, and not paying the slightest attention
to the other's courteous salutation.

"I thought this was the time you liked best," said Driscoll, quietly;
"you always said, 'Come to me when I've done for the day--'"

"But who told you I had done for the day? That pile of letters has yet
to be answered; many of them I have not even read. The Attorney-General
will be here in a few minutes about these prosecutions too."

"That's a piece of good luck, anyhow," said Driscoll, quickly.

"How so? What d' ye mean?"

"Why, we could just get a kind of travelling opinion out of him about
this case."

"What nonsense you talk!" said Dunn, angrily; "as if a lawyer of
standing and ability would commit himself by pronouncing on a most
complicated question, the details of which he was to gather from _you!_"
The look and emphasis that accompanied the last word were to the last
degree insulting, but they seemed to give no offence whatever to him to
whom they were addressed; on the contrary, he met them with a twinkle
of the eye, and a droll twist of the mouth, as he muttered half to
himself,--

"Yes, God help me, I 'll never set the Liffey on fire!"

"You might, though, if you had it heavily insured," said Dunn, with a
savage irony in his manner that might well have provoked rejoinder;
but Driscoll was proof against whatever he didn't want to resent, and
laughed pleasantly at the sarcasm.

"You were dining at the Lodge, I suppose, to-day?" asked he, eager to
get the conversation afloat at any cost.

"No, at Luscombe's,--the Chief Secretary's," said Dunn, curtly.

"They say he's a clever fellow," said Driscoll.

"They are heartily