“Nonsense, my dear fellow!” exclaimed Mr. Bubbleton Styles: “I know that I can take the liberty of using the names of at least half of my intended Provisional Committee-men; and the others will not think of contradicting the prospectus, when they see that we have got Mr. Podgson as chairman.”
“What—Podgson!” cried Mr. Curtis, almost wild with joy and surprise. “You don’t mean to say that you’ve got Podgson?”
“Not yet,” answered the speculator, with his characteristic coolness: “but I shall have him by this time to-morrow.”
“I thought that you had not spoken of your scheme to a soul before you met me and the captain this morning——”
“Neither had I—and Podgson is totally unaware at this moment that such a project is in existence,” interrupted Mr. Styles, calmly and deliberately. “But I know how to deal with him: I have read his character from a distance;—and, although I have never yet exchanged a word with him in my life, depend upon it I shall hook him as our chairman before I am twenty-four hours older. Three minutes more!” cried the speculator: then, as if to make the most of the hundred and eighty seconds at his disposal, Mr. Styles closed the present interview in the following business-like and highly gratifying manner:—“You are both as shabby as you well can be; and you must obtain new clothes as soon as possible. Here is a ten-pound note for each of you. Moreover you must get respectable lodgings at once; and you can give a reference to me. To-morrow, at three o’clock punctually, there will be chops and sherry in readiness at my office—and I shall expect you both. Not a moment before three, remember—because you will be interrupting me: and if you’re a moment after, I shall decline any farther transactions with you. So good bye—I haven’t time to shake hands.”
Thus speaking, Mr. Styles rushed from the room, it being four o’clock to an instant;—and it is perhaps as well to observe that this perfect man of business had only made an appointment with his friends at the public-house in Fleet Street, because he had another gentleman to meet in the neighbourhood at six minutes past four.
CHAPTER CXXIV.
CHARLES HATFIELD.
It was past midnight; and in only one chamber throughout the Earl of Ellingham’s spacious mansion was a light still burning.
In that chamber Charles Hatfield was pacing to and fro—his mind filled with thoughts of so bewildering, exciting, and painful a nature, that he felt the inutility of endeavouring to escape from them by retiring to his couch.
This young man of twenty-five years of age,—so handsome, so intelligent, and with the certainly of inheriting vast riches,—possessing the most brilliant worldly prospects, and knowing himself to be the object of his parents’ devoted affection—entertaining, too, a profound love for the beautiful Lady Frances Ellingham, and having every reason to hope that his passion was reciprocated,—this young man, with so many advantages in respect to position, and so many sources of felicity within his view,—Charles Hatfield was restless and unhappy.