CHAPTER I. Diamond cut Diamond.

“Confoundedly unlucky for you, Max.”

“Truth, though you spoke it, my boy.”

Having uttered which civil reply, Mr. Maxwell Drewitt flung the fag-end of a cigar he had been gnawing out of the window, lit another, and commenced smoking like a chimney.

I wonder, reader, what opinion you, looking into that little sitting-room, would be inclined to form concerning the two men who tenanted it—what sort of character you would naturally attribute to each—what precise road through life you might think it most probable they would respectively follow.

That tall one lolling on the sofa will, if you ask his name, answer, “Tim Ryan, at your service;” whilst the younger man, supposing you put the same question to him, would first inquire, “What the deuce business it was of yours?” and finally give in to the fact, that people did call him Maxwell Drewitt, nephew to Archibald Drewitt, Esquire, of Kincorth, near Duranmore, Connemara, Galway, Ireland.

It is the story of Maxwell Drewitt’s life which I am about to try to tell, and I must ask you before we 2go further, to look attentively at him, and at the man whom for lack of a better word must be called his friend.

There they sit in the sunlight, in the parlour of Mr. Ryan’s house, which is a long, low, two-storey, whitewashed cottage, standing a little back from the highroad leading to Duranmore. There they are for you to study at your leisure. Ryan fair; Drewitt dark; the former grey-eyed, reddish haired, wide-mouthed, and eight-and-twenty; the latter nearly six years younger, slightly made, and rather under than over the middle height, with dark eyes, dark complexion, and regular features.

Nothing very remarkable, you think, about either of them in face, dress, circumstances, or expression.

Perhaps you may judge that Ryan is inclined to mirth, whilst Drewitt affects gravity; that Max has more brains than Tim, and Tim a better temper than Max; but still, notwithstanding Ryan turns his eyes at times in a way which is not pleasant, and although when Drewitt speaks he has a peculiar and most ungraceful knack of not moving his lips like other people, you see nothing evil in either face.

Look again, look steadily, and be sure. Nothing evil? No, decidedly not; and this time you are certain of the accuracy of your observation.

All of which only proves that, spite of Lavater, faces are oftentimes great lies. They are the paper-money of society, for which, on demand, there frequently proves to be no gold in the human coffer.

Maxwell Drewitt’s face, at any rate, was a lie, for it told no unpleasant tales about his character. There was nothing disagreeable in its expression; there was 3no shadow of evil in his eyes, and yet the person that knew him best perhaps on earth—his uncle—once declared, “the man who trusted Maxwell Drewitt twice was a fool.”

He had been that fool, so it is fair to suppose him a competent judge in the matter.

Wherever Maxwell Drewitt had been born; under whatsoever circumstances he had been brought up; had he been the son of a bishop, or the heir of a duke, there can be no reasonable doubt but that he would have turned out just as bad a man, though, perhaps, a man differently bad.

With Timothy Ryan the case was different. It seemed as though Nature had hardly been able to decide what to make of him; that she had hesitated between an honest man and a rogue; and that while she remained irresolute, training and nurture took the matter into their own hands, and did the worst for him they could.

He himself was wont to declare he was as honest as he could afford to be; and if such were the case we can only suppose that the smallness of his capital restricted his expenditure of probity and fair dealing to almost a minimum sum per annum.

There ensued a long pause after the two remarks I have recorded, during which the younger man puffed the smoke of his cigar out into the summer air, and the elder toyed with the tassels of the window-curtains and looked forth upon Duranmore Bay.

“Confoundedly unlucky,” he at length repeated, bringing his eyes back from the sea and the mountains, and stretching one long leg across a neighbouring chair—“confoundedly unlucky, indeed.”

4“You have made that remark three times,” answered Mr. Drewitt, “and I do not see that it grows any less true by repetition, for which reason let us quit talking about the matter. If I am not at Kincorth I shall be elsewhere. We must always be someplace, Tim; on the earth, or in it. What’s done is done, and there is no use fretting over it. When one door is shut, another is open. The thing that has been predestined from the beginning of time must come to pass before the end of it. Are not those your sentiments?”

“Yes, but then we never know what has been predestined till it actually happens; and this cursed marriage has not come off yet. Though I am a firm fatalist, still I never leave anything for fate to do that I can do for myself, and should advise you ditto. Can’t you scotch the wheel, Max?”

“I? No,” replied the other.

“Nor loosen a screw, nor upset the coach matrimonial, nor—nor do anything, my son?”

“Not a thing,” said Mr. Drewitt out of one side of his mouth.

“Could you not go to London and marry her yourself?”

“And saddle myself with a poor wife, and in due time a tribe of hungry brats, leaving my worthy uncle at liberty to marry any one else whom he might take it into his wise head to fancy. No thank you, Tim, I am rather too wide awake for that. Let him bring home his young wife; I won’t try to prevent him.”

“They say she is pretty, Max, as well as young,” remarked Mr. Ryan. “She will wind him round her 5finger. There will be some stir at the old place when she comes over.”

“Yes, the same stir there always has been,” said Maxwell Drewitt with a malicious smile, “a rustling of bills, and clamour of duns, a rumour of writs and dread of bailiffs. I wish the lady joy of her bargain. She will see hundreds going out, but not a sixpence will she ever be able to keep in her purse. She will have to pay the servants’ wages with promises, and manage her housekeeping on credit, and turn her silk gowns three times. She will be the scapegoat in trouble, the stay at home in pleasure. She will have to teach Willy and Katty, and fight it out with Sue. She will have no excitement from year’s end to year’s end, for it is not likely she can either drink or hunt. Altogether, Mrs. Archibald Drewitt of Kincorth will have an agreeable life of it, and if she were the devil I pity her.”

At that Ryan looked up. “You pity her?” he repeated slowly and doubtingly, for he knew his companion seldom pitied any but those he was resolved should ere long require an abundance of the article from some one. “You pity her?”

“Yes, faith,” answered the other; “I know what Kincorth has been to us; I know what it will be to her. But hang it, Ryan, let us quit talking about this new martyr; put a cigar in your mouth and shut up.”

“They say,” continued Mr. Ryan, unheeding his friend’s polite request, “that your uncle intends settling Kincorth upon her.”

For a moment Maxwell Drewitt remained silent, 6while his face changed and darkened; then he answered—

“Likely enough. The man’s in love, you know.”

“So he may be,” replied Ryan, “but justice is justice for all that; and it is not justice to cut you out of the house and demesne for ever.”

“And a day,” finished the smoker; “but bless your soul, it may just as well be decided, now that I am never to be a farthing the better for any Drewitt living or dead, except myself. It must have come to this sooner or later, and I say it is better sooner, than later.”

“Then how am I to be paid?” inquired the other. At which question Mr. Maxwell Drewitt raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders and looked full in his friend’s face while he laughed aloud.

“What the devil is amusing you?” asked Ryan angrily.

“So you were waiting to be paid out of Kincorth, were you?” answered Mr. Drewitt. “You would have been content to run barefoot till Archibald Drewitt dropped off his shoes some fine winter morning following the hounds, or slipped his feet out of them after a night’s hard drinking preparatory to taking a sound sleep in Eversbeg Abbey. Laugh!—it is enough to make a cat laugh to think of such patience.”

“I was not waiting for his death,” retorted Ryan. “I thought he would do something for you before long—make some suitable provision for the next heir.”

“You chanced to be damnably out in your thought, then,” replied the younger man; “that is all the remark I have to offer on the subject.”

“Well, then, how am I to be paid?” repeated Mr. 7Ryan. “You owe me more than I can afford to lose, Max, and——”

“Don’t trouble yourself to make a speech,” interrupted Drewitt, “there is no audience; you want to know how you are to be paid. I’ll pay you. You perhaps want to know when. Within twelve months. You may further desire to know how, but that is my business, not yours. Now let us talk about something else.”

“If you have not much gold, you have lots of brass,” remarked the other: “you borrow and borrow and borrow, and then say I am not to ask a question about repayment.”

“Are you going to dun me, Ryan?”

“I do not want to dun you; I only wish to know how I am to be paid.”

“I have told you I will pay you within twelve months from this present hour.”

“But how? How is it possible?”

“Mr. Timothy Ryan,” broke in his friend, “there is only one way in which a man without a pound note in his pocket can possibly pay his debts honourably—with an ounce of lead. If you would choose that settlement between us I can have no possible objection to such an arrangement; but if, on the other hand, you prefer taking your principal and interest in the coin of the realm you must wait my time, and my time is a year from this date.”

“Have your year, then,” said the other, sulkily. “I don’t want to press you. I only——”

“That’s right,” answered Mr. Drewitt, as his friend paused. “Now let us talk about something else.”

“What else? The election?”

8“Thank you. I hear enough about that up at the house. The very name of it drives me away. I am sick and tired to death of the whole confounded humbug;” and as he concluded, the young man rose from his chair, placed a somewhat shabby hat jauntily on his head, and prepared to take his departure.

“Stop a minute,” entreated Ryan. “You know the seat is to be contested this time, and pretty hotly too. Sache is not going to walk over the course as Abbott did. You are old enough to take some decided part on your own account. Which party do you side with?”

“Really, I have never thought about the matter; but I will now. Let me see—who is my uncle for?”

“Sache, of course.”

“Then I am for Ryan, of course,” returned Mr. Drewitt.

“May we count upon your assistance?” asked Ryan eagerly.

“I do not know,” answered the younger man. “Any good likely to come of it?” he inquired, after a moment’s pause.

“What is your figure?” said Ryan. (Among friends, you see, reader, much ceremony can be dispensed with.) “What is your figure?”

“That place of Lynch’s has just fallen in—that place near Eversbeg—round the headland, I mean—between the abbey and the shore.”

“Oh, that! It is promised to Hunter, a Scotch fellow. He talked about building a good house on it.”

“Did he? Well, talk’s cheaper than building, any day. It is a nice farm though, and you can just mention to Waller that I like it, and that Hunter is a Sacheite. I would take it without a fine, on lease of 9Waller’s life. You might think it over. Good-bye.” And without waiting for an answer, Mr. Drewitt strolled leisurely out of the house, and wended his way towards home.

“It is my belief,” remarked Mr. Ryan, as he watched his visitor’s departure, “it is my belief, Max, that you are the making of as great a scoundrel as ever broke bread.”

And considering Mr. Timothy Ryan was a long way from being a honest man himself, this remark may be regarded as a solemn truth, for Mr. Maxwell Drewitt’s friend was by no means biased in his judgment, either by the prejudices of superior virtue or by any contracted ideas as to the number of vices requisite to form a scoundrel.

It was simply the confession of faith of a man who stuck at few things, concerning the character of a man who stuck at none; and when he had given utterance to his opinion in the sentence recorded, Timothy Ryan, Esq., solicitor, felt himself wonderfully relieved, and at liberty to retire from the window to a table covered with books and papers and letters and deeds and leases, where he was soon up to his ears in business.

He had not been writing for more than fifteen minutes, however, when Maxwell Drewitt re-appeared.

He came lounging into the room with the same immoveable expression on his countenance, and the eternal cigar between his lips—for Maxwell Drewitt lived smoking; he did nothing without either a pipe or a weed in his mouth, and the principal reason perhaps why he liked tobacco was, because his uncle detested it.

“I say, Ryan,” began the young man, taking one 10hand out of his pocket in order to knock the ash off his cigar, “I say, Ryan, lend me a pen and sheet of paper, will you, for five minutes? I want to send a letter off to-day, and it will be too late for post, I find, if I go back to Kincorth. There, don’t disturb yourself—that will do.”

And as he concluded, the speaker pulled a chair up to the opposite end of the table, dragged the writing materials his friend looked out, towards him, and then, after sitting biting his nails for a few seconds, shaded the top of the sheet with his hand, dipped his pen in the ink, muttered an oath about the latter being so infernally thick, and began.

Busily the quill at the lawyer’s desk went scratching over the foolscap; rapidly was line after line completed; hurriedly were erasures made and other sentences substituted; but spite of all his hurry, Mr. Ryan managed to keep an eye on his visitor, and tried to make out what he was writing.

He might as well have spared himself the trouble, for even when Maxwell did lift his hand for a moment from the top of the page to the end, that he might finish biting his nails down to the quick, Mr. Ryan found it impossible to read his friend’s letter upside down.

“Never mind,” he thought, “I shall know all about it one of these days. Judging from his face, he means no good to some poor devil.”

Mr. Ryan was right, and if you, dear reader, would like to watch the progress of Mr. Maxwell Drewitt’s little game, we can walk round to the other end of the table, and read the epistle over his shoulder.

[PRIVATE.] “Inchnagawn Cottage, near Duranmore, June 11th, 18—. “Dear Sir,—I suppose you have heard ere this that my uncle is going to be married to a young lady named Dyak, a daughter of Colonel Dyak, of London, but conclude that his intention of settling Kincorth upon her will be as new to you as it was until last night to me. “I am sure it will seem but natural to you that I should wish to prevent this, as you are aware that by the terms of my grandfather’s will, my father, the elder son, was disinherited, and that my sisters and self were consequently left dependent on the generosity, or justice, of my uncle. “You will at once see the effect of such a settlement. It would cut me off for ever from all hope of possessing this portion of my grandfather’s property; as in case of my uncle dying without issue, Kincorth would pass absolutely to Mrs. Drewitt, who would thus be left at liberty to contract a second marriage, and to will the house and demesne to whom she pleased. “Further, it would render your chances of repayment

almost indefinite, Kincorth being the gem of the property; indeed, the result of the whole arrangement would be to place Kincorth beyond the reach of Mr. Drewitt’s creditors; and though there is no doubt but that he would bitterly repent his imprudence in after years, at the present moment any remonstrance on my part would only tend to produce an estrangement between us. “I want nothing except what is fair, and certainly think as the lady has no fortune of her own, that some 12settlement is desirable. But an equitable settlement is one thing, and making over an entire estate to a stranger, another. “However, I now leave the matter entirely in your hands, to act as you think best, for you are the only person who can interfere with advantage to all parties, and shall only beg that you will in any case consider this letter as strictly confidential. “Trusting your health is re-established, “I remain, dear sir, “Yours faithfully, “Maxwell Drewitt. “P.S.—I am at present staying with my friend Mr. Thomas Ryan, and shall feel obliged by your directing

me here under cover to him.”

“So you have finished at last, Max?” remarked the attorney, as his visitor commenced folding up his letter. “I think the sky must be going to fall when you take to the quill. Surely you have not gone and done it?”

“Gone and done what?” demanded the younger man, hurriedly.

“Put your foot in your fortune—made a fool of yourself—fallen in love.”

“Fallen in nonsense!” retorted Mr. Drewitt. “No, Tim, I’m not in love with anybody, unless it be with myself.”

“Ah! that’s best. You will have no rivals there,” replied the lawyer, which remark Maxwell affected not to hear.

13“You are not writing love-letters, then?” persisted Mr. Ryan.

“Not I, faith; the sort of love-letters I want to fall in with are money letters. Thank God, I am not such a fool as you are, Tim.”

“You are thankful for small mercies,” was the retort, uttered as Mr. Drewitt reached the door. “Are you off in a huff? Well, good-bye—but stay—when shall I see you again about the election?”

“Damn the election!” replied the young hypocrite. “Do you think I have nothing to interest me but drunken voters and lying candidates? I’ll come when it suits me; and besides, I have not yet made up my mind whether I will be your man or not.”

“You had better, then, lose no time about making it up,” snapped back Ryan; “for Sache and his people are in the field already, and we ought to be there too.”

“That is your affair,” said Drewitt, as he passed out into the hall. “Adieu, my dear fellow, au revoir!” And this time he banged the door after him and was fairly off.

“Some day,” soliloquized the lawyer, “some day, Maxwell Drewitt, I shall pay you out in your own coin. Some day when you stand in no need of me, nor I of you, then we shall be equals—then we shall have many an old score to settle. Meanwhile——”

He went back to his work, leaving the remainder of the sentence unspoken; and as it would be but waste of time for us to follow his thoughts, we will step out into the bright sunshine, and track Mr. Drewitt’s indolent footsteps home.

CHAPTER II. Maxwell’s Little Game.

Very leisurely Mr. Maxwell Drewitt lounged along, for it was part of that young man’s creed to work rather with his head than with his body. In that caldron he was eternally brewing something which turned out food for him, and poison for other people.

From childhood he had been plotting and scheming, and by dint of long thought and care and study he had finally reached almost the top step of the ladder of hypocrisy, and was, as Ryan said, “the making of as great a scoundrel as ever lived.”