"Ah, that is indeed a miracle," replied Chambers. "I sometimes catch myself wondering at the long-suffering of my creditors. Yet their patience is not altogether unrewarded. I have introduced some very pretty fellows to my old purveyors. There are innocent young gentlemen from the country who would never know where to go for their finery if there wasn't an experienced man of fashion to put them in the right path."
"Ay, Bob, we all understand your pleasant ways. When a man loses the ability to spend on his own account, he may still flourish as the source of spending in others. Tradesmen are always civil to Captain Rook if he visits them in company with Squire Pigeon."
"'Sdeath, Middleton, d'ye mean to insult me?" cried Chambers, with his hand on his sword.
"Nay, Captain, I did but respond in tune with your own ethics, which were never of the strictest."
"Faith, you're right, friend! I was never given to riding the high horse of morality. I spent my money like a gentleman, and any wife's money after it, and have earned the right to take things easily."
"Till you find yourself in the sponging-house, Bob. That evil day must come. All your creditors will not be equally placable."
"Whenever I get into the sponging-house, the odds are I shall be kicked out again for want of funds to make me worth keeping. Your sponging-house, kept by some dirty Jew, and waited on by a drab, is the most expensive hotel in London."
"Then they'll put you among the poor prisoners, and let you fetch and carry for those that are better off. 'Twill be a sorry end for Buck Chambers, the man who used to keep two servants to attend to his jackboots."
"Hang it! 'twas no superfluity of service. No man can be expected to do more than look after three horses or six pairs of boots."
"If they do nab you, Bob," said another friend, who had been attracted from a neighbouring table as the conversation grew louder, Mr. Topsparkle sipping his chocolate silently all the while, and listening in a half-abstracted mood, only reflecting within himself much as Romeo did about the apothecary, that here was a fellow who would do anything for gold; "if the limbs of the law do get you in their clutches, let us hope, for the sake of a world that could scarce exist pleasurably without you, that they won't put you into Marjory's."