"As sure as a gun: just as sure as if I had the money in my hands. She has a long row of housen in Dublin, and owns several housen, besides, in one of the best streets in Liverpool."
Having communicated this agreeable intelligence, Mr. Wheelwright was apparently about taking his departure, and moved to the door; but suddenly turning round, as though some part of his errand had been forgotten, he resumed:—
"So, you see, the small matter I am owing you will soon be paid;—but I shall be obleeged to raise a little money—only a thousand dollars or so—to pay a lawyer to investigate the titles, and I think it like-enough I shall be obleeged to go to England before I get it all settled."
"Oho! Then you are not quite so certain of the fortune, after all. The titles are yet to be examined, eh?"
"But that won't amount to nothing serious though. I know all about it."
"Still, my good doctor, it would have been better had you looked well to those titles before she obtained a title to you."
"But it's of no consequence. You see the case is just here: The captain, d'ye see, had something to do with another woman, who now claims the property for her children; but she wasn't his wife, and it will all come right, as my lawyer tells me, if I can only get him a few hundred dollars to carry it on."
By this time I began to see much more of the poor fellow's case than he did himself. But as it was not particularly convenient for me to accommodate him with another advance, we parted for that time—he to live out his honey-moon in dreams of treasures shortly to be added to the bliss of "wedded love"—and I to indulge in a variety of reflections naturally arising upon the subject, which were doubtless very good, though long since forgotten. The sagacious reader will, perhaps, have no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that my reflections and Doctor Wheelwright's treasures proved, in the end, of about equal value; and that neither would have been taken as good security by any bank or broker to whom application might have been made for a loan of the required funds. Whether such a conclusion, when arrived at, would be correct or not, will be discovered in a succeeding chapter.
CHAPTER XI.