g on behalf of Travers and Treason. By the time that
you were back, people in the City would have forgotten the policeman,
and if you could manage to write home three or four letters about our
trade with Japan and China, they would be willing to forget Faddle."

"But, Sir--"

"Shouldn't you like a tour of that kind?"

"Very much indeed, Sir;--only--"

"Only what, Tom?"

"Ayala!" said Tom, hardly able to suppress a sob as he uttered the
fatal name.

"Tom, don't be a fool. You can't make a young woman have you if she
doesn't choose. I have done all that I could for you, because I saw
that you'd set your heart upon it. I went to her myself, and then I
gave two hundred and fifty pounds for that bauble. I am told I shall
have to lose a third of the sum in getting rid of it."

"Ricolay told me that he'd take it back at two hundred and twenty,"
said Tom, whose mind, prostrate as it was, was still alive to
consideration of profit and loss.

"Never mind that for the present," said Sir Thomas. "Don't you
remember the old song?--'If she will, she will, you may depend on't.
And if she won't she won't; and there's an end on't.' You ought to be
a man and pluck up your spirits. Are you going to allow a little girl
to knock you about in that way?" Tom only shook his head, and looked
as if he was very ill. In truth, the champagne, and the imprisonment,
and Ayala together, had altogether altered his appearance. "We've
done what we could about it, and now it is time to give it over. Let
me hear you say that you will give it over." Tom stood speechless
before his father. "Speak the word, and the thing will be done,"
continued Sir Thomas, endeavouring to encourage the young man.

"I can't," said Tom, sighing.

"Nonsense!"

"I have tried, and I can't."

"Tom, do you mean to say that you are going to lose everything
because a chit of a girl like that turns up her nose at you?"

"It's no use my going while things are like this," said Tom. "If I
were to get to New York, I should come back by the next ship. As for
letters about business, I couldn't settle my mind to anything of the
kind."

"Then you're not the man I took you to be," said the father.

"I could be man enough," said Tom, clenching his fist, "if I could
get hold of Colonel Stubbs."

"Colonel who?"

"Stubbs! Jonathan Stubbs! I know what I'm talking about. I'm not
going to America, nor China, nor anything else, till I've polished
him off. It's all very well you