'Certainly. Morgan, you can go away for a bit.'
'Home, sir?'
'Home—well—yes, I suppose it's late. You look sleepy. I should have been glad to finish the chapter on Beetroot Sugar to-night—but it may stand over for the morning. Be sure you're early.'
'Yes, sir,' the clerk responded with a faint sigh.
He was paid handsomely for late hours, liberally rewarded for his shorthand services; and yet he wished the great Fitzpatrick had not been quite so industrious.
'Now, my dear Hartfield, what can I do for you?' asked Fitzpatrick, when the clerk had gone. 'I can see by your face that you've something serious in hand. Can I help you?'
'You can, I believe, in a very material way. You were five-and-twenty years in Spanish America?'
'Rather more than less.'
'Here, there, and everywhere?'
'Yes; there is not a city in South America that I have not lived in—for something between a day and a year.'