post-obits, bills, and their brethren, bonds,
with judgments in the penal sum of double
the amount, duly confessed and marked in
High Courts. The humble plebeian had
his spectacles on, and went at the work bravely
for as much as three good hours; while I
roamed in and out uneasily; dividing myself
evenly enough betwixt the tin boxes and
the yellow-haired maiden. The end of it
was, he could not see his way, in the least;
but, from mere dim suspicion, and a sort
of surface glance, he could gather enough
to say that things were dark, very dark
indeed.

Some one came to dinner. A hook-
nosed, sleek-haired fellow, with a strange
likeness to the merchant; at whose entry I
fumed and scowled. Because, forsooth, I let
myself out on a visit to those below the level,
is there to be unfair advantage taken of such
condescension, and is such fry as this to be
brought in to stare, and help the host's
glorification? It was only his own brother,
just come for a dinner; a long-headed,
man, I was told. He was a solicitor, and
talked of his trade openly, and in a smooth
way. It irked me exceedingly to find myself
compassed about by such company. I was
fallen low enough, indeed—enough to wish
that my poor father might not be looking
from his fresh grave.

"By the way," said the baronet, after
dinner, in the most natural way in the world,
"here is my brother, a lawyer, who can set
you right about those papers. He has
extraordinary experience. He is concerned
confidentially—for my Lord Willoughby of the
Park."

My father had reverenced my Lord
Willoughby's family from a child, and had made
me reverence it too. I looked on the hook-
nosed with a certain interest now.

His advice and experience were at the
service of such a friend of his brother's as
I was; unprofessionally, be it understood.
This offer was scorned, as was only fitting
it should be. No offence; there was no
offence, he said, intended. As I was such a
friend of his brother's family, he merely
thought there should be no stiffness, or
anything of that sort—that is—

I coloured up, to flaming tint. This fellow,
then, had been let into the secret of the
debt: what was to be expected from the
precious plebeian keeping it had got into?
"Brother," said Sir Thomas, from the other
side of the table, "you must not put things
in that way. Mr. Sundon and Mr. Sundon's
father have known of me for some years back.
But I have no claim on Mr. Sundon or Mr.
Sundon's father for such high consideration
as would entitle me to the honour of what
you call intimate friendship. So please do
what you are required to do, in the way of
business."

The flaming tint, on this, subsided. That
very night the tin boxes were turned upside
down again, and the attorney went in
head foremost among the papers. All that
night he was at the work, and came up late
with news that he would give an answer
on the morrow.

The tune of that answer was something to
this effect.—When the threatening company
of mortgages, bonds, judgments, came to have
their heads set together, and were duly
polled, and placed in their order, the upshot
was: Say, in round numbers, one hundred
thousand pounds of liabilities, all pressing
relentlessly with foreclosure power;
besides smaller fry that could be staved off
for the present. On the whole, about the
net value of the estate, if sold. Sold it must
be presently, said Hooknose smoothly,—under
foreclosure power.

V.

THIS was a blow, the like of which I had
not reckoned on, in the worst hours of
despondency. I was a pauper at that moment;
but an aristocratic pauper. Hebrew
gentlemen and wolves innumerable (not
troubling themselves with sheep clothing
now), would be down upon me presently. One
ugly Foreclosure, the result of a bill filed in
Chancery, was actually in force at that instant.
Hebrew Levi had only to cut the thread, and
the sword was down upon Damocles. I
could have fallen at full length on the
rich carpets of the baronet. I might come
upon the parish at once, an unredeemed
pauper. Then, that rare notion of working out
the extinct peerage! Why, at that moment
there was a letter lying in my pocket freshly
arrived from Poleaxe, herald at arms, full
of wonderful hopes and encouragement, but
craving money earnestly for the searches. In
fact those same searches would, he averred,
be at a standstill for evermore, unless aliment
were forthcoming promptly. What precious
likelihood there was of it now!

That very night, out of this trouble of
mind and brain-racking, was born a sort of
light fever, which kept me tossing in bed for
several days, uttering wandering talk
concerning paupers and Union Workhouses;
with a disturbed view, at more composed
intervals, of a golden-haired maiden drawing
near and fading off into clouds; now bringing
drinks and doing other angel's work.
But it was only a light fit after all; lasting
but three or four days. Then, strength came
back, and I was abroad again. There was a
peck of Hebrew letters lying waiting for me,
with one ugly missive from Ben Levi, stating
that Foreclosure, Esquire, was on his road
down, unless indeed I should stay him on
the journey. Equity of Redemption would
stand to me, and might beard Foreclosure
still. But how was he to be bought?

Hooknose was on the ground, accidentally
it would seem, and was had into council.
The mushroom Baronet was not present.
Hooknose said it was growing serious, and