hardly enough authority at the club to be of
any use to him. On the Tuesday again he did not go to the club. He
felt severely the loss of the excitement to which he had been
accustomed, but the thing was too important to him to be slurred over.
He did not dare to sit down and play with the man who had cheated him
without saying anything about it. On the Wednesday afternoon life was
becoming unbearable to him and he sauntered into the building at about
five in the afternoon. There, as a matter of course, he found Dolly
Longestaffe drinking sherry and bitters. 'Where the blessed angels
have you been?' said Dolly. Dolly was at that moment alert with the
sense of a duty performed. He had just called on his sister and
written a sharp letter to his father, and felt himself to be almost a
man of business.

'I've had fish of my own to fry,' said Felix, who had passed the last
two days in unendurable idleness. Then he referred again to the money
which Dolly owed him, not making any complaint, not indeed asking for
immediate payment, but explaining with an air of importance that if a
commercial arrangement could be made, it might, at this moment, be
very serviceable to him. 'I'm particularly anxious to take up those
shares,' said Felix.

'Of course you ought to have your money.'

'I don't say that at all, old fellow. I know very well that you're all
right. You're not like that fellow, Miles Grendall.'

'Well; no. Poor Miles has got nothing to bless himself with. I suppose
I could get it, and so I ought to pay.'

'That's no excuse for Grendall,' said Sir Felix, shaking his head.

'A chap can't pay if he hasn't got it, Carbury. A chap ought to pay of
course. I've had a letter from our lawyer within the last half hour--
here it is.' And Dolly pulled a letter out of his pocket which he had
opened and read indeed the last hour, but which had been duly
delivered at his lodgings early in the morning. 'My governor wants to
sell Pickering, and Melmotte wants to buy the place. My governor can't
sell without me, and I've asked for half the plunder. I know what's
what. My interest in the property is greater than his. It isn't much
of a place, and they are talking of L50,000, over and above the debt
upon it. L25,000 would pay off what I owe on my own property, and make
me very square. From what this fellow says I suppose they're going to
give in to my terms.'

'By George, that'll be a grand thing for you, Dolly.'

'Oh yes. Of course