‘I understood that Sir Sykes had two daughters,’ said the attorney innocently.
‘He had three, if you come to that,’ was Hold’s rough answer. ‘But this is no daughter. Maybe she’ll be a daughter-in-law, some fine day.’
‘Oho!’ said Mr Wilkins, arching his eyebrows. ‘Young lady on a visit, I presume?’
‘On a very long visit,’ answered Hold. ‘A ward she is of the Bart., orphan daughter of an old Indian brother-officer. Name of Willis; Christian name Ruth.’
‘Ruth!’ Trained and practised as the sharp London man of business was in the incessant struggle of wits and jarring interests, he could not repress the exclamation. ‘Bless me—Ruth!’ he added breathlessly, and grew red and pale by turns. There seemed to be some magic in the sound of that apparently simple name which affected those who heard it.
‘Name of Willis; Christian name Ruth,’ repeated Hold. ‘Like one of themselves she is now. Shouldn’t wonder if she were to change her name, first to Mrs Captain Denzil, afterwards to Lady Denzil when Sir Jasper that will be comes into title and property. You’ve known Sir Jasper that will be, squire; you’ve had dealings with him. Now, mark me! The sooner that young dandy makes up his mind to place a gold ring on Miss Ruth’s pretty finger, the better for him and for the Bart. and for you too Mr Wilkins. “A nod’s as good as a wink”—you know the rest of the proverb.’ And throwing on the table a card, on which were legibly pencilled the words ‘Captain Hold. Inquire at Plugger’s Boarding-house;’ and promising, ominously, to see Mr Wilkins again, in London or at Carbery, the seaman took his leave.
Left alone, the lawyer’s features relaxed into a smile of satisfaction. ‘A cleverish fellow and vain of his cleverness, this Hold, but very communicative. It would surprise you, my good captain, if you knew how very much you have been kind enough to tell me, during our late interview.’
NEW EXPLOSIVES.
At the head of the list of deadly explosives must of course be placed gunpowder, which is so well known that nothing needs to be said regarding it. Interest attaches to recent inventions, still as it were in their infancy. The most important of these new explosives is gun-cotton, a substance of most peculiar nature and properties. It is prepared by immersing cotton-waste (previously rendered chemically clean) in a mixture of nitric and sulphuric acid—the latter acid merely acting as a mechanical aid to the former. The cotton is afterwards thoroughly washed, reduced to a pulp, and finally dried and compressed into slabs or discs; the last operation being the only process throughout its manufacture which is attended with danger. Even where the greatest precautions are taken, the constant handling of a dangerous substance with impunity will sooner or later lead to carelessness, or at anyrate to forgetfulness of its terrible character. The disastrous explosion some years ago at the large gun-cotton works at Stowmarket, where the most stringent rules for the common safety were in force, is an illustration of this. It is needless to dwell upon the impossibility of tracing the immediate cause of such a fatality—the guilty hand being of course one of the first to suffer the dread penalty.