"Why, it's more to yourself, Mr. Stubmore; he is but a lad, and if he goes back to his friends they may take care of him, but he got into a bad set afore he come here. Do you know a good-looking chap with whiskers, who talks of his pheaton, and was riding last night on a brown mare?"
"Y—e—s!" said Mr. Stubmore, growing rather pale, "and I knows the mare, too. Why, sir, I sold him that mare!"
"Did he pay you for her?"
"Why, to be sure, he gave me a cheque on Coutts."
"And you took it! My eyes! what a flat!" Here Mr. Sharp closed the orbs he had invoked, and whistled with that self-hugging delight which men invariably feel when another man is taken in.
Mr. Stubmore became evidently nervous.
"Why, what now;—you don't think I'm done? I did not let him have the mare till I went to the hotel,—found he was cutting a great dash there, a groom, a pheaton, and a fine horse, and as extravagant as the devil!"
"O Lord!—O Lord! what a world this is! What does he call his-self?"
"Why, here's the cheque—George Frederick de—de Burgh Smith."
"Put it in your pipe, my man,—put it in your pipe—not worth a d—-!"