The system of imprisonment for debt falls trebly hard upon the poor. The gentleman, though reduced himself, has friends who can assist him; but the poor are too poor to aid each other. Then money can purchase bail when a schedule has been filed in the Insolvents' Court; but the poor man must languish in prison until his hearing. Oh! the advantages of wealth or wealthy connexions in this mercenary land!—oh! the benefits of being by birth a gentleman!
It was about ten o'clock in the evening, when Tim the Snammer and Josh Pedler encountered each other, by appointment, at Newington Butts; and, as it was yet too early for the business which they had in hand, they repaired to a public-house hard by, where they drank porter, smoked pipes, and conversed, until the clock in the tap-room denoted the hour of eleven.
They then rose, paid their score, and took their departure,—bending their way into Horsemonger Lane.
Tim the Snammer now fell a few paces behind his comrade, Josh Pedler, who hurried a short distance up the lane, and stopped at the door of a house of mean, sordid, and sombre appearance.
He knocked at the door, which was opened by an old and hideous-looking woman, holding in her hand a candle, by the light of which she surveyed the visitor in a very suspicions manner.
"I want to speak to a genelman of the name of Bones which lives here," said Josh, placing his foot, with apparent carelessness, in such a way over the threshold that the door might not be shut against his inclination.
"No sich a person don't live here," returned the woman gruffly; and she was about to close the door, when Josh again addressed her.
"Well," said he, "if he don't pass by that there name, he does by another—and it's all the same. We ain't partickler, ma'am, as to names; but my business is partickler, though—and I've got an appintment with Mr. Benjamin Bones—or Old Death—or whatever else he calls his-self or is called by others."
"It ain't of no use a standing bothering here, my good man," said the woman, "'cause vy—no sich a person lives here, I tell you—and I don't know sich a person by sich a name at all."
"Humbug!" cried Josh and, giving a low, short whistle, he pushed into the house.