"Well, my Lord!"—exclaimed Gammon, impatiently.
"Sir, it is gone! Blown up! Entirely disappeared, sir!"
"Gone! Blown up! The Artificial Rain Company? Oh, my Lord, it's impossible!" cried Gammon, with well-feigned amazement.
"Sir—it is clean gone. Sir Sharper Bubble has absconded!" His Lordship handed the paper to Mr. Gammon, who read the paragraph (which he had perused some hour or two before in bed, where his own copy of the Morning Growl was at that moment lying) with every appearance of horror, and the newspaper quite shook in his trembling hands!
"It cannot—it cannot be true, my Lord!" said he, his eyes glued to the paper.
"Sir, it is. I have been myself to the Company's office—it is quite closed—shut up; there is only an old woman there, sir! And, at the bankers', the only answer is—'Account closed!'"
"Then I am nearly a couple of thousand pounds poorer—my God! what shall I do? Do, my Lord, let us drive off instantly to Sir Sharper Bubble's house, and see if he be really gone. It may be a villainous fabrication altogether—I never will believe that such a man—How miserable that both your Lordship and I should have been out of town yesterday!"
Thus Gammon went on, with great eagerness, hoping to occupy Lord Dreddlington's thoughts exclusively with the matter; but he was mistaken. The earl, after a little pause, reverted to the previous subject, and repeated his inquiry as to the rent-charge, with an air of such serious determination as soon satisfied Gammon that there was no evading the crisis which had so suddenly arisen. With the topic, his Lordship also unconsciously changed his manner, which was now one of offended majesty.
"Sir," said he, with stately deliberation, "what you have said to myself personally, cannot be unsaid; but I desire a plain answer, Mr. Gammon, to a plain question. Is the document which I had in my hand, an instrument giving you—gracious Heaven!—a charge of two thousand pounds a-year upon my son-in-law's estate? Sir, once for all, I peremptorily insist on an answer before I leave your chambers; and, if I do not obtain it, I shall instantly cause a rigorous inquiry to be set on foot."