"To tell you the truth, George, I'm in a funk about them myself. I saw a very suspicious-looking Jew outside the office as I came in this morning,--a fellow in rusty black, with a blazing nose; and when he came towards me my heart jumped into my mouth. However, he only asked me which was Mr. Beresford's office--"
"Mr. Beresford's?"
"Yes, our swell Commissioner, you know; so I got off easy."
"What's the entire figure that you're liable for--including mine, and all the rest of them, I mean?"
"The entire figure? well, it can't be far off a couple of hundred. I had to spend such a lot when Emily was in town; pit-stalls whenever she went to the Opera, to be near her, and hire of horses, and my share of two or three Greenwich dinners, and all that, walked into no end of tin. I don't know where the deuce I'm to get it, and that's the fact."
"Do you owe any thing else? tailors or boot-makers, or any fellows of that sort?"
"Not a sixpence! I cleared what little bills I had of that kind with part of old Scadgers' money. And since I got that rise here last month, I could go on as straight as possible on what I get. But it's the infernal millstone of a back debt round my neck. I don't know what to do! I can't go and ask the dear old governor to advance; he's got quite enough to do with his income, and he'd be awfully knocked over to hear I was in for such a lot."
"Of course you can't. Now, look here; I'll tell you what you must do. You must first pledge your word to me and to yourself--not that any thing can be raised upon it, but it's the right thing to do--that you won't borrow another sixpence. And then you must go to old Scadgers and tell him that you're in a fix; that you can't pay him in a lump: but that you'll let him have so much every quarter of the principal, and pay decent interest until it's cleared off. You must draw-in your horns a little, and live quietly on the remainder. I'll go security for you to old Scadgers."
"You're a trump, George; but do you think he'll do it?"
"Do it? he must. He makes far too good an income out of the fellows in this place and other government-offices to have any public row made about him and his goings-on. If it got blown, they'd have a leader on him in the Scourge that would take the skin off his old back, and, worse than that, stop his business entirely. No, no; he'll do it fast enough. But we must go to him in a regular business manner. Now what are the dates and amounts of these different things?"