elp me get those--those--"

"Chestnuts," said Sam, with a grin.

"Well, call them that if you like, my boy," said his father, trying to
be jocose, but looking ghastly pale the while, and with the perspiration
standing in tiny drops upon his forehead. "But you must help me, Sam.
The money will all be yours by and by."

Sam sat back staring straight before him in silence for a few minutes,
while his father watched him intently.

"Well, I don't want you to get into trouble, father," he said at last.
"You don't open out to me frankly, but I can see as far into a millstone
as most people. I'm not quite a fool."

"No, my boy, no," said James Brandon eagerly. "I'm delighted to find
what a sharp man of business you are growing."

"But you never made yourself hoarse by telling me so, dad," said Sam,
with a grin.

"Because I did not want to make you conceited, my dear boy," cried the
father. "Then you will help me?"

"The money's no temptation to me, father," said Sam loftily.

"But it will be very useful to you by and by, my boy. Surely you don't
want that ill-conditioned cub to inherit it."

"Of course I don't," said Sam. "There, all right, I'll go and get them
for you somehow, but if there's any rumpus afterward you'll have to
stand the racket, for I shan't. I shall say you sent me."

"Of course, my boy, of course. But you are too clever to make any
mistake over the business, and--and you are beginning to be a great help
to me, Sam. The time's getting on now towards when we must begin to
think of your being a junior partner. Only about three or four years,
Sam.--Then you will go down at once?"

"You leave that to me," said Sam importantly. "But I must have some
money."

"Yes, my boy, of course. Half-a-sovereign will be plenty, I suppose?"

"No, you don't," said Sam, with a look full of contempt at the shrunken,
degraded man before him, who was receiving the punishment already of his
misdeeds, and suffering more keenly than from any which could have been
inflicted by the law.

"But how much do you want, my boy?" he faltered--"fifteen shillings?"

"I want two pounds," said Sam coolly, "to pay my expenses. Perhaps I
shall have to give some blackguard half-a-sovereign to get the papers
for me, and if I come back with them all right, you'll have to give me
five pounds."

"Five pounds!" gasped his father.

"Yes, dad; and if you make so much fuss about it I shan't go unless you
give me ten pounds."