“No matter what I told you,” said Mrs. Dolly. “Folks can’t live upon air. Yesterday the landlady of the public-house at the bowling-green, whom I’m sure I looked upon as my friend,—but there’s no knowing one’s friends,—sent me in a bill as long as my arm; and the apothecary here has another against me worse again; and the man at the livery-stables, for one-horse chays, and jobs that I’m sure I forgot ever having, comes and charges me the Lord knows what! and then the grocer for tea and sugar, which I have been giving to folks from whom I have got no thanks. And then I have an account with the linen-draper of I don’t know how much! hut he has over-charged me, I know, scandalously, for my last three shawls. And then I have never paid for my set of tea china; and half of the cups are broke, and the silver spoons, and I can’t tell what besides.”
In short, Mrs. Dolly, who had never kept any account of what she spent, had no idea how far she was getting into a tradesman’s debt till his bill was brought home: and was in great astonishment to find, when all her bills were sent in, that she had spent four hundred and fifty pounds in her private expenses, drinking included, in the course of three years and eight months. She had now nothing left to live upon but one hundred pounds, so that she was more likely to be a burden to Maurice than any assistance. He, however, was determined to go to a friend, who had frequently offered to lend him any sum of money he might want, and who had often been his partner at the gaming-table.
In his absence, Ellen and George began to take a list of all the furniture in the house, that it might be ready for a sale, and Mrs. Dolly sat in her arm-chair, weeping and wailing.
“Oh! laud! laud! that I should live to see all this!” cried she. “Ah, lack-a-daisy! lack-a-daisy! lack-a-day! what will become of me? Oh, la! la! la! la!” Her lamentations were interrupted by a knock at the door. “Hark! a knock, a double knock at the door,” cried Mrs. Dolly. “Who is it? Ah, lack-a-day, when people come to know what has happened, it will be long enough before we have any more visitors; long enough before we hear any more double knocks at the door. Oh, laud! laud! See who it is, George.”
It was Mr. Belton, who was come to ask George to go with him and his little nephew to see some wild beasts at Exeter-’change: he was much surprised at the sorrowful faces of George and Ellen, whom he had always been used to see so cheerful, and inquired what misfortune had befallen them? Mrs. Dolly thought she could tell the story best, so she detailed the whole, with many piteous ejaculations; but the silent resignation of Ellen’s countenance had much more effect upon Mr. Belton. “George,” said he, “must stay to finish the inventory he is writing for his mother.”
Mr. Belton was inquiring more particularly into the amount of Maurice’s debts, and the names of the persons to whom he had lost his money at the gaming-table, when the unfortunate man himself came home. “No hope, Ellen!” cried he. “No hope from any of those rascals that I thought my friends. No hope!”
He stopped short, seeing a stranger in the room, for Mr. Belton was a stranger to him. “My husband can tell you the names of all the people,” said Ellen, “who have been the ruin of us.” Mr. Belton then wrote them down from Maurice’s information; and learned from him that he had lost to these sharpers upwards of three thousand eight hundred pounds in the course of three years; that the last night he played, he had staked the goods in his shop, valued at 350l, and lost them; that afterwards he staked the furniture of his house, valued at 160l.; this also he lost; and so left the gaming-table without a farthing in the world.
“It is not my intention,” said Mr. Belton, “to add to your present suffering, Mr. Robinson, by pointing out that it has arisen entirely from your own imprudence. Nor yet can I say that I feel much compassion for you; for I have always considered a gamester as a most selfish being, who should be suffered to feel the terrible consequences of his own avaricious folly, as a warning to others.”
“Oh, sir! Oh, Mr. Belton!” cried Ellen, bursting now, for the first time, into tears, “do not speak so harshly to Maurice.”
“To you I shall not speak harshly,” said Mr. Belton, his voice and looks changing; “for I have the greatest compassion for such an excellent wife and mother. And I shall take care that neither you nor your son, whom you have taken such successful pains to educate, shall suffer by the folly and imprudence in which you had no share. As to the ready money which your husband has lost and paid to these sharpers, it is, I fear, irrecoverable; but the goods in your shop, and the furniture in your house, I will take care shall not be touched. I will go immediately to my attorney, and direct him to inquire into the truth of all I have been told, and to prosecute these villains for keeping a gaming-table, and playing at unlawful games. Finish that inventory which you are making out, George, and give it to me; I will have the furniture in your house, Ellen, valued by an appraiser, and will advance you money to the amount, on which you may continue to live in comfort and credit, trusting to your industry and integrity to repay me in small sums, as you find it convenient, out of the profits of your shop.”