you're better _up_ in these matters than I--(because
I've not been able to turn my particular attention to 'em since I first
began business)--so just tell me, in a word, what good's to be got by
showing that fellow to have died in his father's lifetime?"

"You don't show your usual acuteness, Mr. Quirk," replied Gammon,
blandly. "It is to make waste paper of that confounded conveyance which
he executed, and which Mr. Aubrey doubtless has, and with which he may,
at a stroke, cut the ground from under our feet!"

"The very thought makes one feel quite funny--don't it, Gammon?" quoth
Quirk, with a flustered air.

"It may well do so, Mr. Quirk. Now we _are_ fairly embarked in a cause
where success will be attended with so many splendid results, Mr.
Quirk--though I'm sure you'll always bear me out in saying how very
unwilling I was to take advantage of the villany of that miscreant
Steg--hem"----

"Gammon, Gammon, you're always harking back to that--I'm tired of
hearing on't!" interrupted Quirk, angrily, but with an embarrassed air.

"Well, now we're in it," said Gammon, with a sigh, and shrugging his
shoulders, "I don't see why we should allow ourselves to be baffled by
trifles. The plain question is, undoubtedly, whether we are to stand
still--_or go on_." Mr. Quirk gazed at Mr. Gammon with an anxious and
puzzled look.

"How d'ye make out--in a legal way, you know, Gammon--_when_ a man
died--I mean, of a _natural_ death?" somewhat mysteriously inquired
Quirk, who was familiar enough with the means of proving the exact hour
of certain _violent_ deaths at Debtor's Door.

"Oh! there are various methods of doing so, my dear sir," replied
Gammon, carelessly. "Entries in family Bibles and
prayer-books--registers--tombstones--ay, by the way, AN OLD TOMBSTONE,"
continued Gammon, musingly, "that would settle the business!"

"An old tombstone!" echoed Quirk, briskly, but suddenly dropping his
voice. "Lord, Gammon, so it would! That's an _idea_!--I call that a
decided idea, Gammon. 'Twould be the very thing!"

"The very thing!" repeated Gammon, pointedly. They remained silent for
some moments.

"Snap could not have looked about him sharply enough when he was down at
Yatton--could he, Gammon?" at length observed Quirk, in a low tone,
flushing all over as he uttered the last words, and felt Gammon's cold
gray eye settled on him like that of a snake.

"He could not, indeed, my dear sir," replied Gammon, while Quirk
continu