entleman is most desirous of obtaining
credit. But by a very ordinary process in the human mind, as Jasper had
fallen lower and lower into the lees and dregs of fortune, his pride had
more prominently emerged from the group of the other and gaudier vices,
by which, in health and high spirits, it had been pushed aside and
outshone.

"Humph!" said Poole, after a pause. "If Darrell was as uncivil to you as
he was to me, I don't wonder that you owe him a grudge. But even if you
do lose temper in seeing him, it might rather do good than not. You can
make yourself cursedly unpleasant if you choose it; and perhaps you will
have a better chance of getting your own terms if they see you can bite
as well as bark! Set at Darrell, and worry him; it is not fair to worry
nobody but me!"

"Dolly, don't bluster! If I could stand at his door, or stop him in the
streets, with the girl in my hand, your advice would be judicious.
The world would not care for a row between a rich man and a penniless
son-in-law. But an interesting young lady, who calls him grandfather,
and falls at his knees,--he could not send her to hard labour; and if
he does not believe in her birth, let the thing but just get into the
newspapers, and there are plenty who will: and I should be in a very
different position for treating. 'Tis just because, if I meet Darrell
again, I don't wish that again it should be all bark and no bite, that
I postpone the interview. All your own laziness--exert yourself and find
the girl."

"But I can't find the girl, and you know it. And I tell you what, Mr.
Losely, Colonel Morley, who is a very shrewd man, does not believe in
the girl's existence."

"Does not he! I begin to doubt it myself. But, at all events, you can't
doubt of mine, and I am grateful for yours; and since you have given me
the trouble of coming here to no purpose, I may as well take the next
week's pay in advance--four sovereigns if you please, Dolly Poole."

CHAPTER XII.

ANOTHER HALT--CHANGE OF HORSES--AND A TURN ON THE ROAD.

Colonel Morley, on learning that Jasper declined a personal conference
with himself, and that the proposal of an interview with Jasper's
alleged daughter was equally scouted or put aside, became still more
confirmed in his belief that Jasper had not yet been blest with a
daughter sufficiently artful to produce. And pleased to think that the
sharper was thus unprovided with a means of annoyance, which, skilfully
managed, migh