So to him in troubled slumber, came a knock at the door.
"Come in," he called drowsily; then sat up with beating heart on the edge of his bed, feeling for his slippers with his feet. He did not know that the dapper little figure at the door was to him Mephistopheles, that he was about to sell his soul to the devil; but he was vaguely conscious of an approaching crisis in his life.
"_Soh!_ my young friend, you have bought Sea View shares! Why?"
The room was growing dark. There was a wide interval of shadowy light from the windows between the young man as, having found mental and bodily foothold, he stood coatless, defiant, as if prepared to fight Fate, and Mr. Hirsch decently robed for dinner, and with, as ever, the large white flower of a blameless life in his button-hole. Through the open window the mellow pipe of a blackbird, full of the glad song of wood and dale, forced its way insistently. The memory of it lingered with Ted always. In after years that joyous invitation to the wilds always seemed to sound in his ears whenever a question of choice arose.
Now, though he heard it, he was too busy to heed it.
"Why?" he echoed. "I bought them, sir--because I--I believed in you ... there you have it in a nutshell."
Ted, having recovered his confidence, gave a short laugh. "Upon my soul, I don't know. I did it--that's all."
"Then you had no private intimation--you had not overheard anything--you--it was _unvertraute gut_--no more?"
"You gave me a lead over yourself, you know," replied Ted argumentatively. "You said Jenkin must have time--and the rest followed--I couldn't help knowing the cipher, could I?"
A faint chuckle came from the gloom by the door. "_Soh!_ you have prains! Mr. Cruttenden, I ought to be angry, I ought to tell you many things, but I have searched long for one to believe in me. I need him. Let this be--you have won three hundred pounds. I give you this per year as my clerk. You accept?"
It was all over in a moment. The blackbird ceased his song, and as Ted Cruttenden hurriedly dressed for dinner his head was in a whirl. This was a chance indeed. By Christmas he might stand on more equal ground. And after Christmas? His fancy ran riot in pink satin and diamonds.