"Ay, it is a snug crib enough," replied the other, who had already beheld wreck and ruin wrought in much finer abodes.
"They don't seem a bad sort," observed Merle, who, being young to the business, still thought a bankrupt might be a gentleman, and who moreover was not a tip-top swell like Bailey, whose father rented a house at fifty pounds a year, and only let off the first floor in order to make the two obstinate ends meet.
"What do you mean?" inquired Bailey.
"Why, asking us to have tea and all that," was the innocent answer.
"Pooh!" replied his companion. "Why, it is all over now. They don't know it, but the whole place belongs to us, I mean to our governors. The tea is ours, and the bread and butter and the ham, and not this fowl alone, but every hen and chicken on the premises. Hand me over the loaf, I am as hungry as a hunter."
Had little Mrs. Mortomley understood matters at that moment as she understood them afterwards, she would, hospitable as was her disposition, have turned those two nice young clerks out into the weather, and told them to make up their accounts in the Works or Thames Street, as they should never enter the house at Homewood so long as she remained in it.
But she did not understand, and accordingly after tea the making out of the liabilities proceeded under Rupert's superintendence, Mrs. Mortomley's presence being occasionally required when any question connected with her own department had to be answered.
"I do not see why these debts should be put down," said Dolly at last. "Of course, all household liabilities I shall defray out of my own money."
"No, you won't," replied Rupert brusquely. "You will want every penny of your money for yourself, or I am much mistaken."