“I have ordered a chest of the Rosolio to be sent from Somersetshire.  When it comes, please to send half down here (paying the carriage, of course).  ’Twill be an acceptable present to my kind entertainer, Mr. B.”

This letter was brought to me by Mr. Brough himself at the office, who apologised to me for having broken the seal by inadvertence; for the letter had been mingled with some more of his own, and he opened it without looking at the superscription.  Of course he had not read it, and I was glad of that; for I should not have liked him to see my aunt’s opinion of his daughter and lady.

The next day, a gentleman at “Tom’s Coffee-house,” Cornhill, sent me word at the office that he wanted particularly to speak to me:  and I stopped thither, and found my old friend Smithers, of the house of Hodge and Smithers, just off the coach, with his carpet-bag between his legs.

“Sam my boy,” said he, “you are your aunt’s heir, and I have a piece of news for you regarding her property which you ought to know.  She wrote us down a letter for a chest of that home-made wine of hers which she calls Rosolio, and which lies in our warehouse along with her furniture.”

“Well,” says I, smiling, “she may part with as much Rosolio as she likes for me.  I cede all my right.”

“Psha!” says Smithers, “it’s not that; though her furniture puts us to a deuced inconvenience, to be sure—­it’s not that:  but, in the postscript of her letter, she orders us to advertise the Slopperton and Squashtail estates for immediate sale, as she purposes placing her capital elsewhere.”

I know that the Slopperton and Squashtail property had been the source of a very pretty income to Messrs. Hodge and Smithers, for Aunt was always at law with her tenants, and paid dearly for her litigious spirit; so that Mr. Smithers’s concern regarding the sale of it did not seem to me to be quite disinterested.

“And did you come to London, Mr. Smithers, expressly to acquaint me with this fact?  It seems to me you had much better have obeyed my aunt’s instructions at once, or go to her at Fulham, and consult with her on this subject.”

“’Sdeath, Mr. Titmarsh! don’t you see that if she makes a sale of her property, she will hand over the money to Brough; and if Brough gets the money he—­”

“Will give her seven per cent. for it instead of three,—­there’s no harm in that.”

“But there’s such a thing as security, look you.  He is a warm man, certainly—­very warm—­quite respectable—­most undoubtedly respectable.  But who knows?  A panic may take place; and then these five hundred companies in which he is engaged may bring him to ruin.  There’s the Ginger Beer Company, of which Brough is a director:  awkward reports are abroad concerning it.  The Consolidated Baffin’s Bay Muff and Tippet Company—­the shares are down very low, and Brough is a director there.  The Patent Pump Company—­shares at 65, and a fresh call, which nobody will pay.”