Langholm made sure of the time before
getting into his hansom at the terminus.
"Drive hard," he said, "to the Capital and Counties Bank in Oxford
Street."
And he was there some minutes before the hour.
"I want to know my exact balance, if it is not too much trouble to look
it up before you close."
A slip of paper was soon put into Langholm's hand, and at a glance he
flushed to the hat with pleasure and surprise, and so regained his cab.
"The Cadogan Hotel, in Sloane Street," he cried through the trap; "and
there's no hurry, you can go your own pace."
Nor was there any further anxiety in Langholm's heart. His balance was a
clear hundred more than he had expected to find it, and his whole soul
sang the praises of a country life. Unbusinesslike and unmethodical as
he was, in everything but the preparation of MS., such a discovery
could never have been made in town, where Langholm's expenditure had
marched arm-in-arm with his modest earnings.
"And it can again," he said recklessly to himself, as he decided on the
best hotel in the field of his investigations, instead of lodgings;
"thank God, I have enough to run this racket till the end of the year at
least! If I can't strike the trail by then--"
He lapsed into dear reminiscence and dearer daydreams, their common
scene some two hundred miles north; but to realize his lapse was to
recover from it promptly.
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