“Send word by the bearer.”

“Tell Mr. Wentworth I will call at his house at eleven o’clock.”

The cat was certainly out; Mrs. Barry had told, or some one else had, who I did not know and hardly cared.  The scene was to come now, and I was almost glad of it.  Poor Julia! what a time she must have had with the old bear!

* * * * *

At eleven o’clock I was ushered into Mr. Wentworth’s sitting-room.  Julia was there, but before I had even spoken to her the old gentleman came bustling across the room, with his “Mr. Hackmatack, I suppose”; and then followed a formal introduction between me and her, which both of us bore with the most praiseworthy fortitude and composure, neither evincing, even by a glance, that we had ever seen or heard of each other before.  Here was another weight off my mind and Julia’s.  I had wronged poor Mrs. Barry.  The secret was not out—­what could he want?  It very soon appeared.

After a minute’s discussion of the weather, the snow, and the thermometer, the old gentleman drew up his chair to mine, with “I think, sir, you are connected with the Argus office?”

“Yes, sir; I am its South American editor.’

“Yes!” roared the old man, in a sudden rage.  “Sir, I wish South America was sunk in the depths of the sea!”

“I am sure I do, sir,” replied I, glancing at Julia, who did not, however, understand me.  I had not fully passed out of my last night’s distress.

My sympathizing zeal soothed the old gentleman a little, and he said more coolly, in an undertone:  “Well, sir, you are well informed, no doubt; tell me, in strict secrecy, sir, between you and me, do you—­do you place full credit—­entire confidence in the intelligence in this morning’s paper?”

“Excuse me, sir; what paper do you allude to?  Ah! the Argus, I see.  Certainly, sir; I have not the least doubt that it is perfectly correct.”

“No doubt, sir!  Do you mean to insult me?—­Julia, I told you so; he says there is no doubt it is true.  Tell me again there is some mistake, will you?” The poor girl had been trying to soothe him with the constant remark of uninformed people, that the newspapers are always in the wrong.  He turned from her, and rose from his chair in a positive rage.  She was half crying.  I never saw her more distressed.  What did all this mean?  Were one, two, or all of us crazy?

It soon appeared.  After pacing the length of the room once or twice, Wentworth came up to me again, and, attempting to appear cool, said between his closed lips:  “Do you say you have no doubt that Rio Janeiro is strictly blockaded?”

“Not the slightest in the world,” said I, trying to seem unconcerned.

“Not the slightest, sir?  What are you so impudent and cool about it for?  Do you think you are talking of the opening of a rose-bud or the death of a mosquito?  Have you no sympathy with the sufferings of a fellow-creature?  Why, sir!” and the old man’s teeth chattered as he spoke, “I have five cargoes of flour on their way to Rio, and their captains will—­Damn it, sir, I shall lose the whole venture.”