"Oh! nothing more than a strange coincidence. Just this:—I told you that I had been staying a day or two with my respected aunt on the Pavement. Well, yesterday I wandered through the Tower Hamlets—merely for a ramble—and without any fixed purpose: but, as I was strolling down Brick Lane—a horrid, low, vulgar neighbourhood——"
"Dreadful!" cried Chichester, sitting somewhat uneasily on his chair.
"Oh! terrible—filthy, degrading," continued Egerton, emphatically. "You may therefore conceive my surprise when I perceived the aristocratic name of Chichester painted in huge yellow letters, shaded with brown, over a shop-front in that same Brick Lane."
"How very odd!" ejaculated Chichester, filling himself a bumper of champagne.
"Yes—but those coincidences of course do occur," said the baronet, who, after eyeing his host suspiciously, saw nothing beneath his calm exterior to indicate a pointed object in raising the present topic.
"And what made the thing more ludicrous," continued the young man, "was that over the aristocratic name of Chichester hung three dingy yellow balls."
"Capital! excellent!" exclaimed the gentleman whom this announcement so particularly touched, and who scarcely knew how to cover his confusion.
"Yes: I had a good laugh at the coincidence," said Egerton. "At the same time I knew very well that there could be nothing in common between Mr. Chichester, the pawnbroker of Brick Lane, and the Honourable Arthur Chichester of the fashionable world."
"I should hope not, indeed!" exclaimed Chichester, reassured by this observation.
"Come—take the box, Egerton," said Sir Rupert Harborough.