"I b'lieve you're Count Alteroni, air you?" was Mr. Johnson's first question.
"I am. What is your business with me?"
"I'm come from Rolfe, the attorney, in Clements' Inn," was the reply: "he—"
"Oh! I suppose he has sent you to say that he will accord me the delay I require?" interrupted the count.
"Not quite that there neither," said the man; then, sinking his voice to a mysterious whisper, and glancing towards the ladies with an air of embarrassment, he added, "The fact is, I've got a execution agin your person—a ca-sa, you know, for eighteen hundred and costs."
"A writ—a warrant!" ejaculated the count aloud. "You do not mean to say that you are come to take me to prison?"
"Not exactly that either," replied Mr. Johnson. "You needn't go to quod, you know. You can come to our lock-up in the New-Cut, Lambeth, where you'll be as snug as if you was in your own house, barring liberty."
"I understand you," said the count; then, turning to his wife and daughter, he added, "My dears, the evil moment is arrived. This person is a bailiff come to arrest me; and I must go with him. I implore you not to take this misfortune to heart:—it was sure to happen; and it might just as well occur to-day as a week or a month hence."
"And whither will they take you?" asked the countess, bursting into tears. "Cannot we be allowed to accompany you?"
"You can come, ma'am, and see his lordship to-morrow," said the bailiff; "and you can stay with him from ten in the morning till nine in the evening—or may-be till half-arter ten as a wery partick'lar faviour—for which you'll on'y have to pay half a sufferin extray. But there's my man."