“I am afraid, sir, that he will but presume on your generosity and good nature.”

“Ah, but he is never to know it, Mr Allcraft; I would not for the world have him hear of what I have done.  Should you discover his abode, write to him, I pray—­tell him that I am enraged at his proceedings—­that I do not think that I can ever be reconciled to him again.  Say that my anger has no bounds—­that my heart is breaking—­will break and kill me, if he persists in his ingratitude and cruelty.  Implore him to come home and save me.”

The old man stopped and wept.  Michael was not yet a father and could not understand the tears:  it appears that he understood business much better; for, taking leave of Brammel as soon as he could after the latter had expressed a wish to cash the cheques, he went immediately to the bank and procured the documents.  He presented them with his own hand to the astounded father, from whom, also with his own hand, he received one good substantial draft in fair exchange.

So far, so good; but, in another quarter, Allcraft suddenly discovered that he had committed an egregious blunder.  He had entrusted Planner with the secret of his critical position—­had made him acquainted with the dishonest transactions of his father, and the consequent bankruptcy of the firm.  Not that this disclosure had been made in any violent ebullition of unguarded feeling—­from any particular love to Planner—­from an inability on the part of the divulger to keep his own good counsel.  Michael, when he raised Planner from poverty to comparative affluence, was fully sensible of the value of his man—­the dire necessity for him.  It was indispensable that the tragic underplot of the play should never be known to either Bellamy or Brammel, and the only safe way of concealing it from them, was to communicate it unreservedly to their common partner, and his peculiar protege.  He did so with much solemnity, and with many references to the extraordinary liberality he had himself displayed in admitting him to his confidence, and to a share of his wealth.  “Maintain my secret,” he said to Planner, “and your fortune shall be made; betray me, and you are thrown again into a garret.  You cannot hurt me; nothing shall save you.”  He repeated these words over and over again, and he received from his confidant assurance upon assurance of secrecy and unlimited devotion.  And up to the period of Allcraft’s return from France, the gentleman had every reason to rely upon the probity and good faith of his associate; nor in fact had he less reason after his return.  Were it not that “the thief doth fear each bush an officer,” he had no cause whatever to suspect or tremble:  his mind, for any actual danger, might have been at rest.  But what did he behold?  Why, Planner and Bellamy, whom he had left as distant as stage-coach acquaintances, as intimate and loving, as united and inseparable, as the tawny twins of Siam.  Not a week passed which did not find the former, once,