"We regret being unable to vary or depart from the determination above expressed; and most sincerely hope your resources are of that nature that we shall be spared the unpleasantness of commencing legal proceedings.
"And we remain, dear sir,
"Yours most respectfully,
Quirk, Gammon, & Snap.
"Charles Aubrey, Esquire,
"Vivian Street."
Exactly on the seventh day from that on which Mr. Gammon had made his ill-omened advances towards Miss Aubrey, did the above dreadful and heartless letter reach its destination—being delivered into Mr. Aubrey's hands while he was intently perusing a very heavy set of papers, which, at his request, Mr. Weasel had allowed him to take home. The painful scene which ensued I shall spare the reader—only mentioning that poor Miss Aubrey became almost frantic, treating herself as the sole occasion of this disaster. That very morning, at breakfast, had he been talking of selling out, of their precious remnant in the funds, the sum of £105, to enable him to become a pupil with Mr. Crystal, at the suggestion of the Attorney-General.
What was to be done in this fearful emergency none of them knew—except consenting to an immediate sale of all their plate, books, and furniture. Their affliction, indeed, knew no bounds. Even Mr. Aubrey, though for a long time he bore up heroically, was at length overcome by the agonies of the dear beings whose ruin was involved in his own.
Had not Gammon been prompt in his vengeance? So thought they all.
What was to be done? A word will suffice to explain Mr. Aubrey's position fully. It will be recollected, that about a twelvemonth before, he had been left in possession of a balance of £1,063, after paying the sum of £4,000 to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, Messrs. Runnington, and Mr. Parkinson, in the way which has been already mentioned. Since then, by his incessant exertions, he had realized the sum of £150 by his contributions to literary journals; and, by means of a severe and systematic economy, this sum, together with about £200 taken from his store of £1,063, had sufficed to cover their whole year's expenditure. 'Twas impossible to carry economy farther than they did, without, poor souls, positive injury to their health, and stinting the little children, as Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey often said to each other when alone, with tears and sighs of anguish.
Alas! misfortune followed him like a bloodhound, let him turn his steps whithersoever he might! Naturally anxious to make the most of his little store of £1,063, so long as any considerable portion of it could be spared from their immediate personal necessities, he looked about in all directions for some safe and profitable investment, which might produce him a little more income than could be derived from the funds. He cautiously avoided having the slightest, connection with any of the innumerable joint-stock speculations then afloat, and of which he saw distinctly the mischievous and ruinous tendency; and this, moreover, in spite of the artful occasional representations of Mr. Gammon. Having consulted his banker, and also a member of the House of Commons—one of the city members—a man of immense wealth, and great mercantile experience and sagacity, and with whom he had been intimate while in the House—confirmed by their approval, and also that of Mr. Weasel and Messrs. Runnington, all of whom poor Aubrey anxiously consulted concerning the disposal of this his little ALL; about six weeks after the period of his settlement with Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, he invested five hundred pounds in the purchase of a particular foreign stock. Safe and promising as it appeared, however, at the very moment when it was in the highest repute, with capitalists of all descriptions both at home and abroad—from scarce any assignable reason, but forming one of the many unaccountable instances of fluctuation to which property of that kind is proverbially liable—Aubrey had hardly held his scrip for a month, when—alas!—to his dismay, he found the stock falling—falling—falling; down, down, down, it went, till his scrip was so much waste paper! His loss was irretrievable. The wealthy member whom he had consulted, lost nearly one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, and was driven to the very verge of ruin. Mr. Weasel even—caution personified, in dealing with the little accumulation of his hard earnings—lost upwards of a thousand pounds; and Mr. Runnington, about double that sum. It required a great stretch of fortitude on the part of Mr. Aubrey to sustain this severe and sudden blow with anything like equanimity.—You should have seen and heard Mrs. Aubrey and Miss Aubrey, on that occasion, in order fully to appreciate the rich and melting tenderness of woman's love, sympathy, and fortitude.
This catastrophe—for surely such it was—had left him about £350 only in the funds, and in his banker's hands a little balance of some fifty or sixty pounds to meet his current expenses. The above amount, at the time when Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap's letter reached him, had been necessarily diminished to about £290; which was positively all the money he had in the world, to save himself, and those dependent on him, from absolute destitution. Yet he was now peremptorily called upon, within three days' time, to pay the sum of £1,446, 14s. 6d.
He hurried off, early the next morning, in consternation, to Messrs. Runnington. Mr. Runnington, with a heavy heart and a gloomy countenance, set off instantly, alone, to the office of Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap. He saw Mr. Gammon, who told him, with a well-dissembled air of disgust, to go in to Mr. Quirk, or Mr. Snap. He did so, and found them inexorable. Mr. Quirk doggedly told Mr. Runnington that he had been out of pocket long enough, and would not be fooled by one of his own partners any longer. Mr. Runnington quitted them, fairly at his wits' end; and, on his return, told Mr. Aubrey, whom he had left at his office, that he had done, and could do, "nothing with the vultures of Saffron Hill." Mr. Runnington felt that his unhappy client, Mr. Aubrey, was far too critically situated with respect to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, to admit of his threatening, on Mr. Aubrey's behalf, to refer their exorbitant and monstrous bill to taxation. He knew not, in fact, what suggestion to offer—what scheme to devise—to extricate Mr. Aubrey from his present dreadful dilemma. As for applying for pecuniary assistance from friends, Mr. Aubrey's soul revolted at the bare thought. What—borrow! Overwhelmed as he already was, it would be indeed grossly unprincipled! Was not one alone of his generous friends at that moment under a liability on his behalf of more than ten thousand pounds! No; with gloomy composure he felt that, at last, his hour was come; that a prison wall must soon intervene between him—poor broken-hearted soul!—and the dear beloved beings from whom, as yet, he had never been once separated—no! not for one moment deprived of blessed intercourse and communion with them—his wife—Kate—his unconscious little children——
Kate, however, got desperate; and, unknown to her brother, though with the full privity of his weeping wife, wrote off a long—a heart-rending letter to good old Lady Stratton, whose god-daughter she was, telling her everything. Kate sat up half the night writing that letter, and it was blistered with her tears. She took it very early in the morning, herself, to the post-office, and she and Mrs. Aubrey awaited the issue with the most trembling and fearful solicitude.