tep,
entered.

"Ah! Bradley, is it you, my good fellow?" said Crauford: "glad to see
you,--a fine morning: but what brings you from town so early?"

"Why, sir," answered Mr. Bradley, very obsequiously, "something
unpleasant has--"

"Merciful Heaven!" cried Crauford, blanched into the whiteness of death,
and starting up from the sofa with a violence which frightened the
timid Mr. Bradley to the other end of the room, "the counting-house, the
books,--all safe?"

"Yes, sir, yes, at present, but--"

"But what, man?"

"Why, honoured sir," returned Mr. Bradley, bowing to the ground, "your
partner, Mr. Jessopp, has been very inquisitive about the accounts.
He says Mr. Da Costa, the Spanish merchant, has been insinuating very
unpleasant hints, and that he must have a conversation with you at your
earliest convenience; and when, sir, I ventured to remonstrate about the
unreasonableness of attending to what Mr. Da Costa said, Mr. Jessopp
was quite abusive, and declared that there seemed some very mysterious
communication between you (begging your pardon, sir) and me, and that
he did not know what business I, who had no share in the firm, had to
interfere."

"But," said Crauford, "you were civil to him; did not reply hotly, eh!
my good Bradley?"

"Lord forbid, sir; Lord forbid, that I should not know my place better,
or that I should give an unbecoming word to the partner of my honoured
benefactor. But, sir, if I dare venture to say so, I think Mr. Jessopp
is a little jealous or so of you; he seemed quite in a passion at the
paragraph in the paper about my honoured master's becoming a lord."

"Right, honest Bradley, right; he is jealous: we must soothe him. Go, my
good fellow, go to him with my compliments, and say that I will be with
him by one. Never fear this business will be easily settled."

And, bowing himself out of the room, Bradley withdrew. Left alone, a
dark cloud gathered over the brow of Mr. Crauford.

"I am on a precipice," thought he; "but if my own brain does not turn
giddy with the prospect, all yet may be safe. Cruel necessity, that
obliged me to admit another into the business, that foiled me of
Mordaunt, and drove me upon this fawning rascal! So, so: I almost think
there is a Providence, now that Mordaunt has grown rich; but then his
wife died; ay, ay, God saved him, but the devil killed her. [Dieu a puni
ce fripon, le diable a noye les autres.--VOLTAIRE: Candide.] He! he! he!
But, seriously, ser