322
WYLDER'S HAj\D.
dential talk, with religious gossips and others. upon the
state of the poor Vicar's affairs, his inconceivable prodi-
gality, the unaccountable sums he had made away with, and
his own anxiety to hand over the direction of such a hope-
less complication of debt, and abdicate in favor of any
competent skipper the command of the water-logged and
foundering ship.
'-' Why, his brother Mark could get him cleverly out
of it — could not he?" wheezed the pork-butcher.
"More serious than you suppose," answered Larkin,
with a shake of his head.
"It can't go beyond five hundred, or say nine hundred
— eh, at the outside?"
"Nine hundred — say double as many thousand, and
I'm afraid you'll be nearer the mark. You'll not mention,
of course, and I'm only feeling my way just now, and
speaking conjecturally altogether; but I'm afraid it is
enormous. I need not remind you not to mention."
I cannot, of course, say how Mr. Larkin's conjectures
reached so prodigious an elevation, but I can now com-
prehend why it was desirable that this surprising estimate
of the Vicar's liabilities should prevail. Mr. Jos Larkin
had a weakness for enveloping much of what he said and
wrote in an honorable mystery. He liked writing pri-
vate or confidential at top of his notes, without apparent
right or even reason to impose either privacy or confi-
dence upon the persons to whom he wrote. There was,
in fact, often in the good attorney's mode of transacting
business just soupcon or flavor of an arriere pensSe of
a remote and unseen plan, which was a little unsatisfacto-
ry-
Now, with the Vicar he was imperative that the matter
of the reversion should be strictly confidential — altogeth-
er " sacred," in fact.