“None—unless it be the Lord’s will that I should be supported by divine grace,” answered the dissenting minister, in so doleful a tone and with such a solemn shaking of the head that the whole Court was alarmed lest he was about to go off in a fit.
“I appear to oppose on behalf of several creditors,” said Mr. Bulliwell, one of the leading barristers practising in that Court.
“Oh! the persevering bitterness of those rancorous men!” exclaimed Mr. Sheepshanks, clasping his hands together, and turning up the whites of his eyes in an appalling fashion.
“Silence, Insolvent!” cried the clerk, in a sharp tone.
Meantime, the Commissioners had both been taking a long and simultaneous stare at the religious gentleman; and though one was purblind and the other in his dotage, they nevertheless seemed to arrive in the long run at pretty well the same conclusion—which was, that Mr. Sheepshanks was a dreadful humbug. The glances they interchanged through their spectacles expressed to each other this conviction; and the sharper of the two, who rejoiced in the name of Sneesby, forthwith proceeded to examine the schedule.
“I see that you were once a missionary in the South-Sea Islands Bible Circulating Society, Insolvent?” said this learned functionary.
“Under the divine favour, I was such a vessel in the good cause,” answered Mr. Sheepshanks, with the invariable nasal twang of hypocrisy.
“A what?” demanded Mr. Commissioner Sneesby, in an impatient tone.
“He says he was a vessel, sir,” observed Mr. Bulliwell, the barrister. “It is a word much in vogue amongst the religious world.”
“Oh! the Insolvent calls himself a vessel—does he?” exclaimed the Commissioner. “Well—he has come to a pretty anchorage at last.”