“I am ruined!  I am ruined!”

“You changed it at Evans’ the grocer’s; you had four sovereigns and silver for it.  The other baits were a note and two sovereigns and two half sovereigns.  You spared one sovereign, the rest you nailed.  They were all marked by Lawyer Crawley.  They have been traced from your hand, and lie locked up ready for next assizes.  Good-morning, Mr. Jefferies.”

Jefferies turned a cold jelly where he sat—­and Meadows walked out, primed Crawley, and sent him to stroll in sight of the post-office.

Soon a quavering voice called Crawley into the post-office.  “Come into my back parlor, sir.  Oh!  Mr. Crawley, can nothing be done?  No one knows my misfortune but you and Mr. Meadows.  It is not for my own sake, sir, but my wife’s.  If she knew I had been tempted so far astray, she would never hold up her head again.  Sir, if you and Mr. Meadows will let me off this once, I will take an oath on my bended knees never to offend again.”

“What good will that do me?” asked Crawley contemptuously.

“Ah!” cried Jefferies, a light breaking in, “will money make it right?  I’ll sell the coat off my back.”

“Humph!  If it was only me—­but Mr. Meadows has such a sense of public duty, and yet—­hum!—­I know a way to influence him just now.”

“Oh, sir! do pray use your influence with him.”

“What will you do for me if I succeed?”

“Do for you?—­cut myself in pieces to serve you.”

“Well, Jefferies, I’m undertaking a difficult task—­to turn such a man as Meadows, but I will try it and I think I shall succeed; but I must have terms.  Every letter that comes here from Australia you must bring to me with your own hands directly.”

“I will, sir, I will.”

“I shall keep it an hour or two perhaps, not more; and I shall take no money out of it.”

“I will do it, sir, and with pleasure.  It is the least I can do for you.”

“And you must find me 10 pounds.”  The little rogue must do a bit on his own account.

“I must pinch to get it,” said Jefferies ruefully.

“Pinch then,” replied Crawley coolly; “and let me have it directly.”

“You shall—­you shall—­before the day is out.”

“And you must never let Meadows know I took this money of you.”

“No, sir, I won’t! is that all?”

“That is all.”

“Then I am very grateful, sir, and I won’t fail, you may depend.”

Thus the two battledores played with this poor little undetected one, whom his respectability no less than his roguery placed at their mercy.

CHAPTER XXXI.

WHENEVER Mr. Meadows could do Mr. Levi an ill turn he did; and vice versa.  They hated one another like men who differ about baptism.  Susan sprinkled dewdrops of charity on each in turn.

Levi listened to her with infinite pleasure.  “Your voice,” said he, “is low and melodious like the voice of my own people in the East.”  And then she secretly quoted the New Testament to him, having first ascertained that he had never read it; and he wondered where on earth this simple girl had picked up so deep a wisdom and so lofty and self-denying a morality.