"If he is there, I want you to do me a favour," said Simnel, quietly.
"And that is--?" asked Beresford, in whose ears the word 'favour' always rang with a peculiar knell.
"A very slight one, and involving very little trouble to you; else, you may take your oath, I know you too well to expect you'd grant it," said Simnel, with some asperity. "No! I merely want you, in the course of conversation, and when you have fully secured Mr. Townshend's attention, to introduce, no matter how, the name of a firm--Pigott and Wells."
"Pigott and Wells!" repeated Beresford, mechanically.
"Pigott and Wells. Should he ask you any thing farther, you will remember that it is the name of a cotton firm in Combcardingham; and take care that it fits into your story. That's all!"
"It won't get me into any row, will it?" asked the cautious commissioner; "you're such a tremendously sly old diplomate, such an infernal old Machiavel, that I am always afraid of your getting me into a mess."
"Sweet innocent! you need not fear. There's no harm in the name. Of course, it depends upon yourself how you bring it in."
And Mr. Beresford, with a vivid recollection of owing eight hundred pounds to Mr. Simnel, undertook the commission.
About the same time Mr. Schröder's domestic arrangements were being discussed under the same roof, in No. 120.
"What are you going to do on Thursday night, Jim?" asked Mr. Pringle of Mr. Prescott.