Larkin made a fuller endorsement than usual on this particular letter,
and ruminated over the correspondence a good while, with his lip between
his finger and thumb, and a shadow on his face, before he replaced it in
its iron drawer.

'It is not a thing to be passed over,' murmured the attorney, who had
come to a decision as to the first step to be taken, and he thought with
a qualm of the effect of one of Wylder's confidential notes getting into
Captain Lake's hands.

While he was buttoning his walking boots, with his foot on the chair
before the fire, a tap at his study door surprised him. A hurried glance
on the table satisfying him that no secret paper or despatch lay there,
he called--

'Come in.'

And Mr. Larcom, the grave butler of Brandon, wearing outside his portly
person a black garment then known as a 'zephyr,' a white choker, and
black trousers, and well polished, but rather splay shoes, and, on the
whole, his fat and serious aspect considered, being capable of being
mistaken for a church dignitary, or at least for an eminent undertaker,
entered the room with a solemn and gentlemanlike reverence.

'Oh, Mr. Larcom! a message, or business?' said Mr. Larkin, urbanely.

'Not a message, Sir; only an enquiry about them few shares,' answered Mr.
Larcom, with another serene reverence, and remaining standing, hat in
hand, at the door.