have picked up a tolerable notion of the private cabinet, of its hidden cupboards in the walls, its drawers with secret springs; its sliding planks with hollows beneath them; its chests full of treasure, or what is the same thing as treasure, bonds, mortgage-deeds, and other securities; and its carefully concealed hoards of plate, jewels, and other valuables.  Some of the least scrupulous among them—­such as Staring, Hugh, Cutting Dick, and old Tom Wootton—­have often discussed the possibility of secretly visiting it, and making a perquisition of its stores; but they have been hitherto restrained by their fears of their terrible and vindictive master.

On looking into the cabinet we find Sir Giles seated at a table, with a large chest open beside him, from which he has taken for examination sundry yellow parchments, with large seals attached to them.  He is now occupied with a deed, on one of the skins of which the plan of an important estate is painted, and on this his attention becomes fixed.  His countenance is cadaverous, and its ghastly hue adds to its grimness of expression.  A band is tied round his head, and there is an expression of pain in his face, and an air of languor and debility in his manner, very different from what is usual with him.  It is plain he has not yet recovered from the effects of the crushing blow he received at the jousts.

Opposite him sits his partner, Sir Francis Mitchell; and the silence that has reigned between them for some minutes is first broken by the old usurer.

“Well, Sir Giles,” he inquires, “are you satisfied with your examination of these deeds of the Mounchensey property?  The estates have been in the family, as you see, for upwards of two centuries—­ever since the reign of Henry IV., in fact—­and you have a clear and undisputed title to all the property depicted on that plan—­to an old hall with a large park around it, eight miles in circumference, and almost as well stocked with deer as the royal chase of Theobald’s; and you have a title to other territorial domains extending from Mounchensey Place and Park to the coast, a matter of twelve miles as the crow flies, Sir Giles,—­and including three manors and a score of little villages.  Will not these content you?  Methinks they should.  I’ faith, my worthy partner, when I come to reckon up all your possessions, your houses and lands, and your different sources of revenue—­the sums owing to you in bond and mortgage—­your monopolies and your patents—­when I reckon up all these, I say, and add thereunto the wealth hoarded in this cabinet, which you have not placed out at usance—­I do not hesitate to set you down as one of the richest of my acquaintance.  There be few whose revenue is so large as yours, Sir Giles.  ’Tis strange, though I have had the same chance as yourself of making money, I have not a hundredth part of your wealth.”