‘I did not like to trouble you, Sir Raffle, with private business.’

‘It is always best to tell the whole of the story,’ said Sir Raffle.  Johnny being quite content with the upshot of the negotiations accepted this gentle rebuke in silence and withdrew.  On the next day he appeared again at the office in his ordinary costume, and an idea crossed Sir Raffle’s brain that he had been partly ‘done’ by the affectation of a costume.  ‘I’ll be even with him some day,’ said Sir Raffle to himself.

‘I’ve got my leave, boys,’ said Eames when he went out into the room in which his three friends sat.

‘No!’ said Cradell.

‘But I have,’ said Johnny.

’You don’t mean that old Huffle Scuffle has given it out of his own head?’ Said Fisher.

‘Indeed he has,’ said Johnny; ‘and bade God bless me into the bargain.’

‘And you didn’t give him the oysters?’ said Fit Howard.

‘Not a shell,’ said Johnny.

‘I’m blessed if you don’t beat cock-fighting,’ said Cradell, lost in admiration at his friend’s adroitness.

We know how John passed his evening after that.  He went first to see Lily Dale at her uncle’s lodgings in Sackville Street, from thence he was taken to the presence of the charming Madalina in Porchester Terrace, and then wound up the night with his friend Conway Dalrymple.  When he got to his bed he felt himself to have been triumphant, but in spite of his triumph he was ashamed of himself.  Why had he left Lily to go to Madalina?  As he thought of this he quoted to himself against himself Hamlet’s often-quoted appeal of the two portraits.  How could he not despise himself in that he could find any pleasure in Madalina, having a Lily Dale to fill his thoughts?  ‘But she is not fair to me,’ he said to himself—­thinking thus to comfort himself.  But he did not comfort himself.

On the next morning early his uncle, Mr Toogood met him at the Dover Railway Station.  ‘Upon my word, Johnny, you’re a clever fellow,’ said he.  ‘I never thought you would make it all right with Sir Raffle.’

’As right as a trivet, uncle.  There are some people, if you can only get to learn the length of their feet, you can always fit them with shoes afterwards.’

‘You’ll go direct to Florence, Johnny?’

’Yes, I think so.  From what we have heard, Mrs Arabin must be either there or at Venice, and I don’t suppose I could learn from anyone at Paris at which town she is staying at this moment.’

’Her address is Florence:—­poste restante, Florence.  You will be sure to find out at any of the hotels where she is staying, or where she has been staying.’

‘But when I have found her, I don’t suppose she can tell me anything,’ said Johnny.

’Who can tell?  She may or she may not.  My belief is that the money was her present altogether and not his.  It seems that they don’t mix their moneys.  He has always some scruple about it because of her son by a former marriage, and they always have different accounts at their bankers’.  I found that out when I was at Barchester.’