rd against dirt,
till she's frightened all the women so, that many's the man as has had
to forbid her his house.--But you know that as well as I."

"I never heard a word of it before: but now I have, I'll give you my
opinion on it. That she is a noble, sensible girl, and that you are all
a set of fools who are not worthy of her; and that the greatest fool of
the whole is you, Mr. Tardrew. And when the cholera comes, it will serve
you exactly right if you are the first man carried off by it. Now, sir,
you have given me your mind, and I have given you mine, and I do not
wish to hear anything more of you. Good morning!"

"You hold your head mighty high, to be sure, since you've had the run of
his lordship's yacht."

"If you are impertinent, sir, you will repent it. I shall take care to
inform his lordship of this conversation."

"My dear Thurnall," said Headley, as Tardrew withdrew, muttering curses,
"the old fellow is certainly right on one point."

"What then?"

"That you have wonderfully changed your tone. Who was to eat any amount
of dirt, if he could but save his influence thereby?"

"I have altered my plans. I shan't stay here long: I shall just see this
cholera over, and then vanish."

"No?"

"Yes. I cannot sit here quietly, listening to the war-news. It makes me
mad to be up and doing. I must eastward-ho, and see if trumps will not
turn up for me at last. Why, I know the whole country, half-a-dozen of
the languages,--oh, if I could get some secret-service work! Go I must.
At worst I can turn my hand to doctoring Bashi-bazouks."

"My dear Tom, when will you settle down like other men?" cries Claude.

"I would now, if there was an opening at Whitbury, and low as life would
be, I'd face it for my father's sake. But here I cannot stay."

Both Claude and Headley saw that Tom had reasons which he did not choose
to reveal. However, Claude was taken into his confidence that very
afternoon.

"I shall make a fool of myself with that schoolmistress. I have been
near enough to it a dozen times already; and this magnificent conduct of
hers about the cholera has given the finishing stroke to my brains. If I
stay on here, I shall marry her: I know I shall! and I won't--I'd go
to-morrow, if it were not that I'm bound, for my own credit, to see the
cholera safe into the town, and out again."

Tom did not hint a word of the lost money, or of the month's delay which
Grace had asked of him. The month was drawing fast