"2. That at no time hereafter shall the said Valentine Hawkehurst be entitled to a larger recompense than is herein-before provided; nor shall he be liable to the said George Sheldon for the return of any moneys which the said George Sheldon may advance on account of the said inquiries in the event of the same not resulting in the establishment of an heir to the estates of the late John Haygarth.

"3. That the said Valentine Hawkehurst shall not alter his character of agent to the said George Sheldon during the prosecution of the said inquiry; that he shall deliver over to the said George Sheldon all documents and other forms of evidence that may arise from his, the said Valentine Hawkehurst's, inquires; and that he shall week by week, and every week, and as often as may be necessary, report to the said George Sheldon the result of such inquiries, and that he shall not on any pretence whatever be at liberty to withhold such fruits of his researches, nor discover the same to any one else than the said George Sheldon, under a penalty of ten thousand pounds, to be recovered as liquidated damages previously agreed between the parties as the measure of damages payable to the said George Sheldon upon the breach of this agreement by the said Valentine Hawkehurst.

"In witness whereof the parties hereto have this 20th day of September 1862 set their hands and affixed their seals."

"That sounds stiff enough to hold water in a court of law," said Valentine, when George Sheldon had recited the contents of the document.

"I don't suppose it would be much good in Chancery-lane," returned the lawyer carelessly; "though I daresay it sounds rather formidable to you. When one gets the trick of the legal jargon, it's not easy to draw the simplest form of agreement without a few superfluous words. I may as well call in my clerk to witness our signatures, I suppose."

"Call in any one you like."

The clerk was summoned from a sunless and airless den at the back of his principal's office. The two men appended their signatures to the document; the clerk added his in witness of the genuine nature of those signatures. It was an affair of two minutes. The clerk was dismissed. Mr. Sheldon blotted and folded the memorandum, and laid it aside in one of the drawers of his desk.

"Come," he said cheerily, "that's a business-like beginning at any rate. And now you'd better have some brandy-and-soda, for what I've got to say will take some time in the saying of it."

On this occasion Mr. Hawkehurst accepted the lawyer's hospitality, and there was some little delay before the conversation proceeded.