"I am guilty of great weakness, sir," said at length Mr. Aubrey—his excitement only a little abated. He stood erect, and spoke with stern precision; "but you, perhaps unconsciously, provoked the display of it. Sir, I am ruined; I am a beggar: we are all ruined; we are all beggars: it is the ordering of God, and I bow to it. But do you presume, sir, to think that at last my HONOR is in danger? and consider it necessary, as if you were warning one whom you saw about to become a criminal, to expatiate on the nature of the meditated act by which I am to disgrace myself and my family?" Here that family seemed suddenly standing around him: his lip quivered; his eyes filled; he ceased speaking; and trembled with excessive emotion.
"This is a sally equally unexpected, Mr. Aubrey, and, permit me to add, unwarrantable," said Gammon, calmly, having recovered his self-possession. "You have entirely misunderstood me, sir; or I have ill-explained myself. Your evident emotion and distress touch my very soul, Mr. Aubrey." Gammon's voice trembled. "Suffer me to tell you—unmoved by your violent rebuke—that I feel an inexpressible respect and admiration for you, and am miserable at the thought of one word of mine having occasioned you an instant's uneasiness." When a generous nature is thus treated, it is apt to feel an excessive contrition for any fault or extravagance which it may have committed—an excessive appreciation of the pain which it may have inflicted on another. Thus it was, that by the time Gammon had done speaking, Mr. Aubrey felt ashamed and mortified at himself, and conceived an admiration of the dignified forbearance of Gammon, which quickly heightened into respect for his general character as it appeared to Aubrey, and fervent gratitude for the disposition which he had evinced, from first to last, so disinterestedly to serve a ruined man. He seemed now to view all that Gammon had proposed in quite a new light—through quite another medium; and his excited feelings were in some danger of disturbing his judgment.
"As I am a man of business, Mr. Aubrey," said Gammon, shortly afterwards, with a very captivating smile—how frank and forgiving seeming his temper, to Aubrey!—"and this is a place for business, shall we resume our conversation? With reference to the first ten thousand pounds, it can be a matter of future arrangement as to the mode of securing its payment; and as for the remaining ten thousand, if I were not afraid of rendering myself personally liable to Mr. Titmouse for neglecting my professional duty to him, I should be content with your verbal promise—your mere word of honor, to pay it, as and when you conveniently could. But in justice to myself, I really must take a show of security from you. Say, for instance, two promissory notes, for £5,000 each, payable to Mr. Titmouse. You may really regard them as matters of mere form; for, when you shall have given them to me, they will be deposited there," (pointing to an iron safe,) "and not again be heard of until you may have thought proper to inquire for them. The influence which I happen to have obtained over Mr. Titmouse, you may rely upon my exercising with some energy, if ever he should be disposed to press you for payment of either of the instruments I have mentioned. I tell you candidly that they must be negotiable in point of form; but I assure you, as sincerely, that I will not permit them to be negotiated. Now, may I venture to hope that we understand each other?" added Gammon, with a cheerful air; "and that this arrangement, if I shall be only able to carry it into effect, is a sufficient evidence of my desire to serve you, and will relieve you from an immense load of anxiety and liability?"
"An immense—a crushing load, indeed, sir, if Providence shall in any manner (to me at present undiscoverable) enable me to perform my part of the arrangement, and if you have but power to carry your views into effect," replied Mr. Aubrey, sighing heavily, but with a look of gratitude.
"Leave that to me, Mr. Aubrey; I will undertake to do it; I will move heaven and earth to do it—and the more eagerly, that I may thereby hope to establish a kind of set-off against the misery and loss which my professional exertions have unfortunately contributed to occasion you—and your honored family!"
"I feel deeply sensible of your very great—your unexpected kindness, Mr. Gammon; but still, the arrangement suggested is one which occasions me dreadful anxiety as to my being ever able to carry out my part of it."
"Never, never despair, Mr. Aubrey! Heaven helps those who help themselves; and I really imagine I see your powerful energies already beginning to surmount your prodigious difficulties! When you shall have slept over the matter, you will feel the full relief which this proposed arrangement is so calculated to afford your spirits. Of course, too, you will lose no time in communicating to Messrs. Runnington the nature of the proposal. I can predict that they will be not a little disposed to urge upon you its completion. I cannot, however, help once more reminding you, in justice to myself, Mr. Aubrey, that it is but a proposition, in making which, I hope it will not prove that I have been carried away by my feelings much further than my duty to my client or his interests "–
Mr. Aubrey was afraid to hear him finish the sentence, lest the faint dawn of hope should disappear from the dark and rough surface of the sea of trouble upon which he was being tossed. "I will consult, as you suggest, sir, my experienced and honorable professional advisers; and am strongly inclined to believe that they will feel as you predict. I am of course bound to defer to them,"–
"Oh, certainly! certainly! I am very strict in the observance of professional etiquette, Mr. Aubrey, I assure you; and should not think of going on with this arrangement, except with their concurrence, acting on your behalf. One thing I have to beg, Mr. Aubrey, that either you or they will communicate the result of your deliberations to me, personally. I am very desirous that the suggested compromise should be broken to my partners and our client by me.—By the way, if you will favor me with your address, I will make a point of calling at your house, either late in the evening or early in the morning."
[As if Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap had not kept eagle eyes upon his every movement since quitting Yatton, with a view to any sudden application for a writ of Ne Exeas, which a suspicious approach of his towards the sea-coast might render necessary!]
"I am infinitely obliged to you, sir—but it would be far more convenient for both of us, if you could drop me a line, or favor me with a call at Mr. Weasel's, in Pomegranate Court in the Temple."
Gammon blushed scarlet: but for this accidental mention of the name of Mr. Weasel, who was one of the pleaders occasionally employed by Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap in heavy matters—in all probability Mr. Aubrey might, within a day or two's time, have had to exercise his faculties, if so disposed, upon a declaration of Trespass for Mesne Profits, in a cause of "Titmouse v. Aubrey!"
"As you choose, Mr. Aubrey," replied Gammon, with difficulty concealing his feelings of pique and disappointment at losing the opportunity of a personal introduction by Mr. Aubrey to his family. After a few words of general conversation, Gammon inquiring how Mr. Aubrey liked his new profession, and assuring him, in an emphatic manner, that he might rely upon being supported, from the moment of his being called to the bar, by almost all the common-law business of the firm of "Quirk, Gammon, and Snap"—they parted. It had been to Mr. Aubrey a memorable interview—and to Gammon a somewhat arduous affair, taxing to an unusual extent his great powers of self-command, and of dissimulation. As soon as he was left alone, his thoughts instantly recurred to Aubrey's singular burst of hauteur and indignation. Gammon had a stinging sense of submission to superior energy—and felt indignant with himself for not having at the moment resented it. Setting aside this source of exquisite irritation to the feelings of a proud man, he felt a depressing consciousness that he had not met with his usual success in his recent encounter with Mr. Aubrey; who had been throughout cautious, watchful, and courteously distrustful. He had afforded occasional glimpses of the unapproachable pride of his nature—and Gammon had crouched! Was there anything in their interview—thought he, walking thoughtfully to and fro in his room—which, when Aubrey came to reflect upon—for instance—had Gammon disclosed too much concerning the extent of his influence over Titmouse? His cheek slightly flushed; a sigh of fatigue and excitement escaped him; and gathering together his papers, he began to prepare for quitting the office for the day.
Mr. Aubrey left Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap's office with feelings of mingled exhaustion and despondency. As he walked down Saffron Hill—a dismal neighborhood!—what scenes did he witness! Poverty and profligacy revelling, in all their wild and revolting excesses! Here, was an Irishman, half-stupefied with liquor and bathed in blood, having just been rescued from a savage fight in a low underground public-house cellar, by his squalid wife, with dishevelled hair and a filthy infant in her arms—who walked beside him cursing, pinching, and striking him—reproaching him with the knowledge that she and her seven children were lying starving at home. Presently he stumbled; she with her wretched infant falling down with him; and she lay striking, and scratching, and abusing him till some one interfered.
There, was a woman—as it were a bloated mass of filth steeped in gin—standing with a drunken smile at an old-clothes stall, pawning a dirty little shirt, which she had a few minutes before stripped from the back of one of her four half-naked children!
A little farther on, was a noisy excited crowd round two men carrying a shutter, on which was strapped the bleeding body (a handkerchief spread over the face) of a poor bricklayer, who had fallen a few minutes before from the top of some scaffolding in the neighborhood, and was at that instant in the agonies of death—leaving behind him a wife and nine children, for whom the poor fellow had long slaved from morning to night, and who were now ignorant of the frightful fate which had befallen him, and that they were left utterly destitute.
There, was a skinny little terrified urchin, about eight years old, with nothing to conceal his dirty, half-starved body, but a tattered man's coat, pinned round him; dying with hunger, he had stolen a villanous-looking bare bone—scarce a halfpenny worth of meat upon it; and a brawny constable, his knuckles fiercely dug into the poor little offender's neck, (with his tight grasp,) was leading him off, followed by his shrieking mother, to the police-office, whence he would be committed to Newgate; and thence, after two or three months' imprisonment, and being flogged—miserable little wretch!—by the common hangman, (who had hanged the child's father some six months before,) he would be discharged—to return probably several times and undergo a similar process; then to be transported; and finally be hanged, as had been his father before him.
These startling scenes passed before Mr. Aubrey, in the course of a five minutes' walk down Saffron Hill—during which period he now and then paused, and gazed around him with feelings of pity, of astonishment, of disgust, which presently blended and deepened into a dark sense of horror. These scenes, to some so fatally familiar—fatally, I mean, on account of the INDIFFERENCE which familiarity is apt to induce—to Mr. Aubrey, had on them all the frightful glare of novelty. He had never witnessed anything of the sort before; and had no notion of its existence. The people residing on each side of the Hill, however, seemed accustomed to such scenes; which they appeared to view with the same dreadful indifference with which a lamb led to the slaughter is beheld by one who has spent his life next door to the slaughter-house. The Jew clothesman, before whose shop-window, arrested by the horrifying spectacle of the bleeding wretch borne along to the hospital—Mr. Aubrey had remained standing for a second or two—took the opportunity to assail him, with insolent and pertinacious importunities to purchase some articles of clothing! A fat baker, and a greasy eating-house keeper, stood each at his door, one with folded arms, the other with his hands thrust into his pockets—both of them gazing with a grin at two curs fighting in the middle of the street—oh, how utterly insensible to the ravenous want around them! The pallid spectres haunting the gin-shop—a large splendid building at the corner—gazed with sunken lack-lustre eye, and drunken apathy, at the shattered man who was being borne by.
Ah, God! what scenes were these! And of what other hidden wretchedness and horror did they not indicate the existence! "Gracious mercy!" thought Aubrey, "what a world have I been living in! And this dismal aspect of it exposed to me just when I have lost all power of relieving its wretchedness!"—here a thrill of anguish passed through his heart—"but woe, woe is me! if at this moment I had a thousand times ten thousand a-year, how far would it go amid the scenes similar to this, abounding in this one city? Oh God! what unutterable horror must be in store for those who, intrusted by Thee with an overflowing abundance, disregard the misery around them in guilty selfishness and indolence, or"—he shuddered—"expend it in sensuality and profligacy! Will Dives become sensible of his misconduct, only when he shall have entered upon his next stage of existence, and of punishment? Oh, merciful Creator! how is my heart wrung by the sight of horrors such as these? Awful and mysterious Author of our existence, Father of the spirits of all flesh, are these states of being which Thou hast ordained? Are these Thy children? Are these my fellow-creatures? Oh, help me! help me! my weak heart faints; my clouded understanding is confounded! I cannot—insect that I am!—discern the scope and end of Thy economy, of Thy dread government of the world; yet blessed be the name of my God!—I KNOW that thou reignest! though clouds and darkness are around thee! righteousness and judgment are the habitation of thy throne! with righteousness shalt thou judge the world, AND THE PEOPLE WITH EQUITY!"
Like as the lesser light is lost in the greater, so, in Aubrey's case, was the lesser misery he suffered, merged in his sense of the greater misery he witnessed. What, after all, was his position, in comparison with that of those now before and around him? What cause of thankfulness had he not, for the merciful mildness of even the dispensations of Providence towards him? Such were his thoughts and feelings, as he stood gazing at the objects which had called them forth, when his eye lit on the figure of Mr. Gammon approaching him. He was threading his way, apparently lost in thought, through the scenes which had so powerfully affected Mr. Aubrey; who stood eying him with a sort of unconscious intensity, as if secure from his observation, till he was actually addressed by him.
"Mr. Aubrey!" exclaimed Gammon, courteously saluting him. Each took off his hat to the other. Though Aubrey hardly intended it, he found himself engaged in conversation with Gammon, who, in a remarkably feeling tone, and with a happy flattering deference of manner, intimated that he could guess the subject of Mr. Aubrey's thoughts, namely, the absorbing matters which they had been discussing together.
"No, it is not so," said Mr. Aubrey, with a sigh, as he walked on—Gammon keeping easily beside him—"I have been profoundly affected by scenes which I have witnessed in the immediate neighborhood of your office, since quitting it; what misery! what horror!"
"Ah, Mr. Aubrey!"—exclaimed Gammon, echoing the sigh of his companion, as they slowly ascended Holborn Hill, separate, but side by side—"what a checkered scene is life! Guilt and innocence—happiness and misery—wealth and poverty—disease and health—wisdom and folly—sensuality and refinement—piety and irreligion—how strangely intermingled we behold them, wherever we look on life—and how difficult, to the philosopher, to detect the principle"–
"Difficult?—Impossible! Impossible! God alone can do so!"—exclaimed Mr. Aubrey, thoughtfully.
"Comparison, I have often thought," said Gammon, after a pause—"of one's own troubles with the greater misfortunes endured by others, is beneficial or prejudicial—consolatory or disheartening—according as the mind of him who makes the comparison is well or ill regulated—possessed or destitute, of moral and religious principle!"
"It is so, indeed," said Mr. Aubrey. Though not particularly inclined to enter into or prolong conversation, he was pleased with the tone of his companion's remark.
"As for me," proceeded Gammon, with a slight sigh—"the absorbing anxieties of professional life; and, too, in a line of professional life which, infinitely to my distaste, brings me constantly into scenes such as you have been observing, have contributed to render me, I fear, less sensible of their real character; yet can I vividly conceive the effect they must, when first seen, produce upon the mind and heart of a compassionate, an observant, a reflecting man, Mr. Aubrey!"
Gammon looked a gentleman; his address was easy and insinuating, full of delicate deference, without the slightest tendency to cant or sycophancy; his countenance was an intellectual and expressive one; his conversation that of an educated and thinking man. He was striving his utmost to produce a favorable impression on Mr. Aubrey; and, as is very little to be wondered at, he succeeded. By the time that they had got about twenty yards beyond Fetter Lane, they might have been seen walking together, arm-in-arm. As they approached Oxford Street, they suddenly encountered Mr. Runnington.
"God bless me, Mr. Aubrey!" said he, surprisedly—"and Mr. Gammon? How do you do, Mr. Gammon?"—he continued, taking off his hat with a little formality, and speaking in a corresponding tone; but he was encountered by Gammon with greatly superior ease and distance, and was not a little nettled at it; for he was so palpably foiled with his own weapons.
"Well—I shall now resign you to your legitimate adviser, Mr. Aubrey," said Gammon, with a smile; then, addressing Mr. Runnington, in whose countenance pique and pride were abundantly visible—"Mr. Aubrey has favored me with a call to-day, and we have had some little discussion on a matter which he will explain to you. As for me, Mr. Aubrey, I ought to have turned off two streets ago—so I wish you good-evening."
Mr. Aubrey and he shook hands as they exchanged adieus: Mr. Runnington and he simply raised each his hat, and bowed to the other with cold politeness. As Mr. Runnington and Mr. Aubrey walked westward together, the former, who was a very cautious man, did not think fit to express the uneasiness he felt at Mr. Aubrey's having entered into anything like confidential intercourse with one whom he believed to be so subtle and dangerous a person as Mr. Gammon. He was, however, very greatly surprised when he came to hear of the proposal which had been made by Mr. Gammon, concerning the mesne profits; which, he said, was so unaccountably reasonable and liberal, considering the parties by whom it was made, that he feared Mr. Aubrey must be lying under some mistake. He would, however, turn it anxiously over in his mind, and consult with his partners; and, in short, do whatever they conceived best for Mr. Aubrey—that he might depend upon. "And, in the mean time, my dear sir," added Mr. Runnington, with a smile designed to disguise considerable anxiety, "it may be as well for you not to have any further personal communication with these parties, whom you do not know as well as we do; but let us negotiate with them in everything, even the very least!" Thus they parted; and Mr. Aubrey entered Vivian Street with a considerably lighter heart than he had ever before carried into it. A vivid recollection of the scenes which he had witnessed at Saffron Hill, caused him exquisitely to appreciate the comforts of his little home, and to return the welcomes and caresses which he received, with a kind of trembling tenderness and energy. As he folded his still blooming but somewhat anxious wife fondly to his bosom, kissed his high-spirited and lovely sister, and fondled the prattling innocents who came clambering up upon his lap, he forgot, for a while, the difficulties but remembered the lessons, of the day.
We must, however, now return to Yatton, where some matters had transpired which are not unworthy of being recorded. Though Mr. Yahoo paid rather anxious court to Mr. Gammon, who was very far too much for him in every way, 'twas plain that he dreaded and disliked, as much as he was despised by, that gentleman. Mr. Gammon had easily extracted from Titmouse evidence that Yahoo was endeavoring, from time to time, artfully to set him against his protector, Mr. Gammon. This was something; but more than this—Yahoo, a reckless rollicking villain, was obtaining a growing ascendency over Titmouse, whom he was rapidly initiating into all kinds of vile habits and practices; and, in short, completely corrupting him. But, above all, Gammon ascertained that Yahoo had already commenced, with great success, his experiments upon the purse of Titmouse. Before they had been a week at Yatton, down came a splendid billiard-table with its appendages from London, accompanied by a man to fix it—as he did—in the library, which he quickly denuded of all traces of its former character; and here Yahoo, Titmouse, and Fitz-Snooks would pass a good deal of their time. Then they would have tables and chairs, with cards, cigars, and brandy and water, placed upon the beautiful "soft, smooth-shaven lawn," and sit there playing écarté, at once pleasantly soothed and stimulated by their cigars and brandy and water, for half a day together. Then Yahoo got up frequent excursions to Grilston, and even to York; where, together with his two companions, he had "great sport," as the newspapers began to intimate with growing frequency and distinctness. Actuated by that execrable licentiousness with reference to the female sex, by which he was peculiarly distinguished, and of which he boasted, he had got into several curious adventures with farmers' girls, and others in the vicinity of Yatton, and even among the female members of the establishment at the Hall; in which latter quarter Fitz-Snooks and Titmouse began to imitate his example. Mr. Gammon had conceived a horrid loathing and disgust for the miscreant leader into these enormities; and, but for certain consequences, would have despatched him with as much indifference as he would have laid arsenic in the way of a bold voracious rat, or killed a snake. As it was, he secretly caused him to experience, on one or two occasions, the effects of his good-will towards him. Yahoo had offered certain atrocious indignities to the sweetheart of a strapping young farmer; whose furious complaints coming to Mr. Gammon's ears, that gentleman, under a pledge of secrecy, gave him two guineas to be on the look-out for Yahoo, and give him the best taste he could of a pair of Yorkshire fists. A day or two afterwards, the Satyr fell in with his unsuspected enemy. Yahoo was a strongly-built man, and an excellent bruiser; but was at first disposed to shirk the fight, on glancing at the prodigious proportions of Hazel, and the fury flaming in his eyes. The instant, however, that he saw the fighting attitude into which poor Hazel had thrown himself, Yahoo smiled, stripped, and set to. I am sorry to say that it was a good while before Hazel could get one single blow at his accomplished opponent; whom, however, he at length began to wear out. Then he gave the Yahoo a miserable pommelling, to be sure; and finished by knocking out five of his front teeth, viz. three in the upper, and two in the under jaw—beautifully white and regular they certainly had been; and the loss of them caused him great affliction on the score of his appearance, and also, not a little interfered with the process of cigar-smoking. It would, besides, have debarred him, had he been so disposed, from enlisting as a soldier, inasmuch as he could not bite off the end of his cartridge: wherefore, it would seem, that Hazel had committed the offence of Mayhem.18 Mr. Gammon condoled heartily with Mr. Yahoo, on hearing of the brutal attack which had been made upon him; and as the assault had not been committed in the presence of a witness, strongly recommended him to bring an action of trespass vi et armis against Hazel, which Gammon undertook to conduct to—a nonsuit. While they were conversing in this friendly way together, it suddenly occurred to Gammon that there was another service which he could render to Mr. Yahoo, and with equally strict observance of the injunction, not to let his left hand know what his right hand did; for he loved the character of a secret benefactor. So he wrote up a letter to Snap, (whom he knew to have been treated very insolently by Yahoo,) desiring him to go to two or three Jew bill-brokers and money-lenders, and ascertain whether they had any paper by them with the name of "Yahoo" upon it:—and in the event of such being discovered, he was to act in the manner pointed out by Gammon. Off went Snap like a shot, on receiving this letter; and the very first gentleman he applied to, viz. a Mr. Suck'em Dry, proved to be possessed of an acceptance of Yahoo's for £200, for which Dry had given only twenty-five pounds, on speculation. He readily yielded to Snap's offer, to give him a shy at Mr. Yahoo gratis—and put the document into the hands of Snap; who forthwith delivered it, confidentially, to Swinddle Shark, gent., one &c., a little Jew attorney in Chancery Lane, into whose office the dirty work of Quirk, Gammon, and Snap was swept—in cases where they did not choose to appear. I wish the mutilated Yahoo could have seen the mouthful of glittering teeth that were displayed by the hungry Jew, on receiving the above commission. His duties, though of a painful, were of a brief and simple description. 'Twas a plain case of Indorsee v. Acceptor. The affidavit of debt was sworn the same afternoon; and within an hour's time afterwards, a thin slip of paper was delivered into the hands of the under-sheriff of Yorkshire, commanding him to take the body19 of Pimp Yahoo, if he should be found in his bailiwick, and him safely keep—out of harm's way—to enable him to pay £200 debt to Suck'em Dry, and £24, 6s. 10d. costs to Swindle Shark. Down went that little "infernal machine" to Yorkshire by that night's post.
Nothing could exceed the astonishment and concern with which Mr. Gammon, the evening but one afterwards, on returning to the Hall from a ride to Grilston, heard Titmouse and Fitz-Snooks—deserted beings!—tell him how, an hour before, two big vulgar fellows, one of them with a long slip of paper in his hands, had called at the Hall, asked for the innocent unsuspecting Yahoo, just as he had made an admirable coup—and insisted on his accompanying them to the house of one of the aforesaid bailiffs, and then on to York Castle. They had brought a tax-cart with them for his convenience; and into it, between his two new friends, was forced to get the astounded Yahoo—smoking, as well as he could, a cigar, with some score or two of which he had filled all his pockets, and swearing oaths enough to have lasted the whole neighborhood for a fortnight at least. Mr. Gammon was quite shocked at the indignity which had been perpetrated, and asked why the villains had not been kept till he could have been sent for. Then, leaving the melancholy Titmouse and Fitz-Snooks to themselves for a little while, he took a solitary walk in the elm avenue, where—grief has different modes of expressing itself—he relieved his excited feelings by reiterated little bursts of gentle laughter. As soon as the York True Blue had, among other intimations of fashionable movements, informed the public that "The Hon. Pimp Yahoo" had quitted Yatton Hall for York Castle, where he intended to remain and receive a large party of friends—it was gratifying to see how soon, and in what force, they began to muster and rally round him. "Detainers"20—so that species of visiting cards is called—came fluttering in like snow; and in short, there was no end of the messages of civility and congratulation which he received from those whom, in the season of his prosperity, he had obliged with his valuable countenance and custom.
Ah me, poor Yahoo, completely done! Oft is it, in this infernal world of ours, that the best concerted schemes are thus suddenly defeated by the envious and capricious fates! Thus were thy arms suddenly held back from behind, just as they were encircling as pretty, plump a pigeon as ever nestled in them with pert and playful confidence, to be plucked! Alas, alas! And didst thou behold the danger to which it was exposed, as it fluttered upward unconsciously into the region where thine affectionate eye detected the keen hawk in deadly poise? Ah me! Oh dear! What shall I do? What can I say? How vent my grief for the Prematurely Caged?
Poor Titmouse was very dull for some little time after this sudden abduction of this bold and brilliant spirit, and spoke of bringing an action, at the suggestion of Fitz-Snooks, against the miscreant who had dared to set the law in motion at Yatton, under the very nose of its lord and master. As soon, however, as Gammon intimated to him that all those who had lent Yahoo money, might now rely upon that gentleman's honor, and whistle back their cash at their leisure, Titmouse burst out into a great rage; telling Gammon that he, Titmouse, had only a day or two before lent Yahoo £150!! and that he was a "cursed scamp," who had known, when he borrowed, that he could not repay; and a Detainer, at the suit of "Tittlebat Titmouse, Esq.," was one of the very earliest that found its way into the sheriff's office; this new creditor becoming one of the very bitterest and most relentless against the fallen Yahoo, except, perhaps, Mr. Fitz-Snooks. That gentleman having lent the amiable Yahoo no less a sum than thirteen hundred pounds, remained easy all the while, under the impression that certain precious documents called "I.O.U.'s" of the said Yahoo were as good as cash. He was horribly dismayed on discovering that it was otherwise; that he was not to be paid before all other creditors, and immediately; so he also sent a very special message in the shape of a Detainer, backed by a great number of curses.