you should then be dissatisfied with it, you can but test its

soundness for yourself; if on the other hand, you should be

satisfied with it, and it should be what it now is, it may spare all

sides what is best spared. What do you say?”

“How long would you keep me in town?”

“Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go down to

Soho in the evening, and come to your chambers afterwards.”

“Then I say yes,” said Stryver: “I won’t go up there now, I am

not so hot upon it as that comes to: I say yes, and I shall expect you

to look in tonight. Good morning.”

Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing

such a concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up

against it bowing behind the two counters, required the utmost

remaining strength of the two ancient clerks. Those venerable and

feeble persons were always seen by the public in the act of bowing,

and were popularly believed, when they had bowed a customer

out, still to keep on bowing in the empty office until they bowed

another customer in.

The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would

not have gone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid

ground than moral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large

pill he had to swallow, he got it down. “And now,” said Mr.

Stryver, shaking his forensic forefinger at the Temple