possessor.  Augustus, no doubt, would go down and claim the ownership, unless the matter could be decided to the satisfaction of them both beforehand.  Mr. Grey thought that there was little hope of such satisfaction; but it would of course be for him or his firm to see what could be done.  “That I should ever have got such a piece of business!” he said to himself.  But it was at last settled among them that Mr. Barry should go to Rummelsburg.  He had made the inquiry at Nice, and he would go on with it at Rummelsburg.  Mr. Barry started, with Mr. Quaverdale, of St. John’s, the gentleman whom Harry Annesley had consulted as to the practicability of his earning money by writing for the Press.  Mr. Quaverdale was supposed to be a German scholar, and therefore had his expenses paid for him, with some bonus for his time.

A conversation between Mr. Barry and Mr. Quaverdale, which took place on their way home, shall be given, as it will best describe the result of their inquiry.  This inquiry had been conducted by Mr. Barry’s intelligence, but had owed so much to Mr. Quaverdale’s extensive knowledge of languages, that the two gentlemen may be said, as they came home, to be equally well instructed in the affairs of Mr. Scarborough’s property.

“He has been too many for the governor,” said Barry.  Mr. Barry’s governor was Mr. Grey.

“It seems to me that Scarborough is a gentleman who is apt to be too many for most men.”

“The sharpest fellow I ever came across, either in the way of a cheat or in any other walk of life.  If he wanted any one else to have the property, he’d come out with something to show that the entail itself was all moonshine.”

“But when he married again at Nice, he couldn’t have quarrelled with his eldest son already.  The child was not above four or five months old.”  This came from Quaverdale.

“It’s my impression,” said Barry, “that it was then his intention to divide the property, and that this was done as a kind of protest against primogeniture.  Then he found that that would fail,—­that if he came to explain the whole matter to his sons, they would not consent to be guided by him, and to accept a division.  From what I have seen of both of them, they are bad to guide after that fashion.  Then Mountjoy got frightfully into the hands of the money-lenders, and in order to do them it became necessary that the whole property should go to Augustus.”

“They must look upon him as a nice sort of old man!” said Quaverdale.

“Rather!  But they have never got at him to speak a bit of their mind to him.  And then how clever he was in getting round his own younger son.  The property got into such a condition that there was money enough to pay the Jews the money they had really lent.  Augustus, who was never quite sure of his father, thought it would be best to disarm them; and he consented to pay them, getting back all their bonds.  But he was very uncivil to the squire,—­told him that the sooner he died the better, or something of that sort; and then the squire immediately turned round and sprung this Rummelsburg marriage upon us, and has left every stick about the place to Mountjoy.  It must all go to Mountjoy,—­every acre, every horse, every bed, and every book.”