them), and a gown and cap to correspond. In that costume he would have
left nothing to be desired, if he had been further fitted out with a
bottomless chair, a lantern, and a bunch of matches.

'Now, old 'un!' cried Fascination, in his light raillery, 'what dodgery
are you up to next, sitting there with your eyes shut? You ain't asleep.
Catch a weasel at it, and catch a Jew!'

'Truly, sir, I fear I nodded,' said the old man.

'Not you!' returned Fledgeby, with a cunning look. 'A telling move with
a good many, I dare say, but it won't put ME off my guard. Not a bad
notion though, if you want to look indifferent in driving a bargain. Oh,
you are a dodger!'

The old man shook his head, gently repudiating the imputation, and
suppressed a sigh, and moved to the table at which Mr Fledgeby was now
pouring out for himself a cup of steaming and fragrant coffee from a pot
that had stood ready on the hob. It was an edifying spectacle, the young
man in his easy chair taking his coffee, and the old man with his grey
head bent, standing awaiting his pleasure.

'Now!' said Fledgeby. 'Fork out your balance in hand, and prove by
figures how you make it out that it ain't more. First of all, light that
candle.'

Riah obeyed, and then taking a bag from his breast, and referring to
the sum in the accounts for which they made him responsible, told it out
upon the table. Fledgeby told it again with great care, and rang every
sovereign.

'I suppose,' he said, taking one up to eye it closely, 'you haven't been
lightening any of these; but it's a trade of your people's, you know.
YOU understand what sweating a pound means, don't you?'

'Much as you do, sir,' returned the old man, with his hands under
opposite cuffs of his loose sleeves, as he stood at the table,
deferentially observant of the master's face. 'May I take the liberty to
say something?'

'You may,' Fledgeby graciously conceded.

'Do you not, sir--without intending it--of a surety without intending
it--sometimes mingle the character I fairly earn in your employment,
with the character which it is your policy that I should bear?'

'I don't find it worth my while to cut things so fine as to go into the
inquiry,' Fascination coolly answered.

'Not in justice?'

'Bother justice!' said Fledgeby.

'Not in generosity?'

'Jews and generosity!' said Fledgeby. 'That's a good connexion! Bring
out your vouchers, and don't talk Jerusalem palaver.'

The vouchers were produced,