“Gregson the upholsterer, sir, cannot meet the third instalment due this day on his warrant-of-attorney for eight hundred pounds,” said Mr. Green, referring to the diary; “but he called just now and told me that if you would give him till next Monday——”
“Not an hour, Green,” interrupted Mr. Heathcote, imperiously. “Let execution issue. He has enough property to satisfy the greater portion—and, as his brother-in-law is his security, we shall slap at him without delay for the residue. He is a toiling, striving man, and will beat up amongst his friends to raise the necessary amount by the time we have run him up some twenty pounds’ costs. What is the next?”
“Sir Thomas Skeffington’s bill for five hundred pounds comes due to-day, sir,” continued the head clerk; “and he proposes to renew it.”
“Let me see?” mused Mr. Heathcote. “It was originally two hundred pounds that I lent this young spendthrift baronet; and he has already renewed six times. Well—let him give another bill—for five hundred and fifty, mind—don’t forget to tack on the fifty, Green. His uncle will pay the debt eventually—it is all safe. Go on.”
“Thompson, sir, the defendant in Jones’s case, has let judgment go by default,” continued Mr. Green: “he says that he would do anything rather than run up expenses; and he has been here this morning to beg and implore that time may be granted. His wife has just been confined, and his eldest child is at the point of death. The debt is a hundred and eleven pounds with costs—and he proposes to pay it at five pounds a week.”
“No such thing!” exclaimed Mr. Heathcote, almost savagely. “Let him go to prison! He will be writing imploring letters, and his father-in-law will call to make terms. Those letters and visits, Green, will be another six or seven pounds in my pocket: and then we will let him out on his warrant-of-attorney to pay the five pounds a-week. It is always better to send a man in his case to prison first, although you mean all the time to accede to his proposal in the long run. He is an industrious, enterprising fellow—and his father-in-law is a highly respectable man. So he will not knock up for this little affair. Go on.”
“Beale’s wife called last evening, sir,” resumed Mr. Green, “and says that her husband is lying in a sad state in the infirmary at Whitecross-street prison. She and her children are starving—and she begs you for the love of God to let her husband out. It is their only chance; and he will pay you when he can.”
“When he can!” exclaimed Mr. Heathcote, in bitter contempt. “And that will be never. I am surprised, Mr. Green, that you should have bothered me with such a trifle, instead of telling the woman at once that her husband may rot in gaol until he pays me every farthing.”
“I should not have thought of troubling you, sir, in the matter,” observed the clerk, in a tone of servile contrition; “only the woman did seem so very, very miserable—and she cried so bitterly—and she had a young child that looked half-famished in her arms——”
“And you pitied her, I suppose?” interrupted Mr. Heathcote, in a tone of cool irony. “You have been in my service for twelve years to some purpose.”