You have heard how my old friend David Camlet, musical instrument maker, of Dowgate Street, presented me—or my wife—on our marriage, with a handsome harpsichord. Shortly after my father's death, this good old gentleman also went the way of all flesh: a melancholy event which I only learned by receiving a letter from Mr. Probus. Imagine, if you can, my amazement when I read the following:

'Sir,

'I have to call your immediate attention to your debt of fifty-five pounds for a harpsichord supplied to you by David Camlet of Dowgate Street, deceased. I shall be obliged if you will without delay discharge this liability to me as attorney for the executors—

'And Remain Sir,

'Your obedient humble Servant,

'Ezekiel Probus'

'Why,' said Alice. 'Mr. Camlet gave us the instrument. It was a free gift.'

'It was. If Mr. Probus will acknowledge the fact.'

'Mr. Probus? Is it that man with the harsh voice who talked lies to you?'

'The same. And much I fear, wife, that he means no good by this letter.'

'But Mr. Camlet gave us the harpsichord.'

Had the letter been received from any other person I should have considered it as of no importance; but the thought that it came from Mr. Probus filled me with uneasiness. What had that worthy attorney said? 'There are ways—we shall find a way to bring you to reason.'

'My dear,' said Alice, 'since we have had the instrument for two years without any demand for payment, we ought to be safe. Better go and see the man.'

It was with very little hope that I sallied forth. Not only was this man a personal enemy but he was an attorney. What must be the true nature of that profession which so fills the world with shuddering and loathing? Is it, one asks, impossible to be an honest attorney? This one, at all events, was as great a villain as ever walked. They are a race without pity, without scruple, without turning either to the right or to the left when they are in pursuit of their prey. They are like the weasel who singles out his rabbit and runs it down, being turned neither to one side nor the other. Their prey is always money: they run down the man who has money: when they have stripped him naked they leave him, whether it is in a debtor's prison or in the street: when he is once stripped they regard him no longer. Other men take revenge for human motives, for wrongs done and endured: these men know neither revenge nor wrath: they do not complain of wrongs: you may kick them: you may cuff them: it is nothing: they want your money: and that they will have by one way or another.

I took boat from St. Mary Overies stairs. As I crossed the river a dreadful foreboding of evil seized me. For I perceived suddenly that, somehow or other, Mr. Probus was personally interested in getting me to sell my reversion. How could he be interested? I could not understand. But he was. I remembered the persuasion of his manner: his anxiety to get my signature: his sudden manifestation of disappointment when I refused. Why? Matthew was now a partner with a large income and the fortune which my father left him. Matthew had no expensive tastes. Why should Mr. Probus be interested in his affairs?

Next, asked the silent reasoner in my brain, what will happen when you declare that you cannot pay this debt? This man will show no mercy. You will be arrested—you will be taken to Prison. At this thought I shivered, and a cold trembling seized all my limbs. 'And you will stay in the Prison till you consent to sell your reversion.' At which I resumed my firmness. Never—never—would I yield whatever an accursed attorney might say or do to me.

Mr. Probus wrote from a house in White Hart Street. It is a small street, mostly inhabited by poulterers, which leads from Warwick Lane to Newgate market: a confined place at best: with the rows of birds dangling on the hooks, not always of the sweetest, and the smell of the meat market close by and the proximity of the shambles, it is a dark and noisome place. The house, which had a silver Pen for its sign, was narrow, and of three stories: none of the windows had been cleaned for a long time, and the door and doorposts wanted paint.

As I stood on the doorstep the words again came back to me, 'We will make him sell his reversionary interest.'

The door was opened by an old man much bent and bowed with years: his thin legs, his thin arms, his body—all were bent: on his head he wore a small scratch wig: he covered his eyes with his hand on account of the blinding light, yet the court was darkened by the height of the houses above and the dangling birds below.

He received my name and opened the door of the front room. I observed that he opened it a very little way and entered sliding, as if afraid that I should see something. He returned immediately and beckoned me to follow him. He led the way into a small room at the back, not much bigger than a cupboard, which had for furniture a high desk and a high stool placed at a window so begrimed with dirt that nothing could be seen through it.

There was no other furniture. The old man climbed upon his stool with some difficulty and took up his pen. He looked very old and shrivelled: his brown coat was frayed: his worsted stockings were in holes: his shoes were tied with leather instead of buckles: there was no show of shirt either at the wrist or the throat. He looked, in fact, what he was, a decayed clerk of the kind with which, as a boy, I had been quite familiar. It is a miserable calling, only redeemed from despair—because the wages are never much above starvation-point—by the chance and the hope of winning a prize in the lottery. No clerk is ever so poor that he cannot afford at least a sixteenth share in this annual bid for fortune. I never heard that any clerk within my knowledge had ever won a prize: but the chance was theirs: once a year the chance returns—a chance of fortune without work or desert.

Presently the old man turned round and whispered, 'I know your face. I have seen you before—but I forget where. Are you in trade? Have you got a shop?'

'No. I have no shop,'

'You come from the country? No? A bankrupt, perhaps? No? Going to make him your attorney?' He shook his head with some vehemence and pointed to the door with his pen. 'Fly,' he said. 'There is still time.'

'I am not going to make him or anyone else my attorney,'

'You come to borrow money? If so'—again he pointed to the door with the feathery end of the quill. 'Fly! There is still time.'

'Then you owe him money. Young man—there is still time. Buy a stone at the pavior's—spend your last penny upon it; then tie it round your neck and drop into the river. Ah! It is too late—too late—' For just then Mr. Probus rang a bell. 'Follow me, Sir. Follow me. Ah! That paving stone!'

Mr. Probus sat at a table covered with papers. He did not rise when I appeared, but pointed to a chair.

'You wish to see me, Mr. William,' he began. 'May I ask with what object?'

'I come in reply to your letter, Mr. Probus,'

'My letter? My letter?' He pretended to have forgotten the letter. 'I write so many, and sometimes—ay—ay—surely. The letter about the trifling debt due to the estate of David Camlet Deceased. Yes—yes, I am administering the worthy man's estate. One of many—very many—who have honoured me with their confidence.'

'That letter, Mr. Probus, is the reason why I have called.'

'You are come to discharge your obligation. It is what I expected. You are not looking well, Mr. William. I am sorry to observe marks—are they of privation?—on your face. Our worthy cousin, on the other hand, has a frame of iron. He will live, I verily believe, to ninety.'

'Never mind my cousin, Mr. Probus. He will live as long as the Lord permits.'

'When last I saw you Sir, you foolishly rejected a most liberal offer. Well: youth is ignorant. We live and learn. Some day, too late, you will be sorry. Now, Sir, for this debt. Fifty-five pounds. Ay. Fifty-five pounds. And my costs, which are trifling.'

'I have come to tell you, Mr. Probus, that your letter was written under a misapprehension.'

'Truly? Under a misapprehension? Of what kind, pray?'

The harpsichord was a gift made by Mr. David Camlet. I did not buy it.'

Mr. Probus lifted his eyebrows. 'A gift? Really? You have proof, no doubt, of this assertion?'

'Certainly.'

'Well, produce your proofs. If you have proofs, as you say, I shall be the first to withdraw my client's claim. But makers of musical instruments do not usually give away their wares. What are your proofs, Sir?'

'My word, first.'

'Ta—ta—ta. Your word. By such proof every debtor would clear himself. What next?'

'The word of my wife who with me received the instrument from Mr. Camlet.'

'Receiving the instrument does not clear you of liability—what else?'

'The fact that Mr. Camlet never asked me for the money.'

'An oversight. Had he, in a word, intended the instrument for a gift, he would have said so. Now, Sir, what other proofs have you?'

I was silent. I had no other proof.

He turned again to the book he had before consulted. It was the ledger, and there, in Mr. Camlet's own handwriting, firm and square, was an entry:

'To Will Halliday—a Harpsichord, £55.

In another book was an entry to the office that the instrument had been delivered.

Of course, I understand now what the old man meant by the entry. He wanted to note the gift and the value: and unfortunately he entered it as if it was a business transaction.

'Well, Sir?' asked Mr. Probus.

I said nothing. My heart felt as heavy as lead. I was indeed in the power of this man.

'There are such things as conspiracy,' he went on, severely. 'You have told me, for instance, that you and your wife are prepared to swear that the instrument was a gift. I might have indicted you both for a conspiracy, in which case Tyburn would have been your lot. For the sake of your excellent cousin and the worthy Mr. Peter, your uncle, Sir, I refrain from the indictment, though I fear I might be charged with compounding a felony. But mercy before all things: charity, mercy, and long suffering. These are the things that chiefly nourish the human soul, not guineas.'

I remained still silent, not knowing what to do or to say, and seeing this abyss yawning before me.

'Come Sir,' he said with changed voice, 'you owe fifty pounds and costs. If it were to myself I would give you time: I would treat you tenderly: but an Attorney must protect his clients. Therefore I must have that money at once.'

'Give me time to consult my friends.' Alas! All my friends could not raise fifty pounds between them.

'You have none. You have lost your friends. Pay me fifty pounds and costs.'

'Let me see the executors. Perhaps they will hear reason.'

'For what purpose? They must have their own. The long and the short of it, Mr. William Halliday, is that you must pay me this money.'

'Man! I have not got so much money in the world.'

He smiled—he could not disguise his satisfaction.

'Then, Mr. William Halliday'—he shut the ledger with a slam—'I fear that my clients must adopt—most unwillingly, I am sure—the measures sanctioned by the law.' His eyes gleamed with a malicious satisfaction. 'I only trust that the steps we shall have to take will not disturb the mind of my much-respected client, your cousin. You will have to choose your prison, and you will remain in the—the Paradise of your choice until this money, with costs, is paid. As for your choice, the situation of the Fleet is more central: that of the Bench is more rural: beyond the new Prison there are green fields. The smell of the hay perhaps comes over the wall. Should you find a lengthened residence necessary, I believe that the rooms, though small, are comfortable. Ah! how useful would have been that three thousand pounds which you refused—at such a juncture as this.'

'If there is nothing more to be said——' I got up, not knowing what I said, and bewildered with the prospect before me.

'Heaven forbid, Sir,' he continued sweetly, 'that I should press you unduly. I will even, considering the tender heart of your cousin, extend to you the term. I will grant you twenty-four hours in which to find the money.'

'You may as well give me five minutes. I have no means of raising the sum.'

'I am sorry to hear that for the sake of my clients. However, I can only hope'—he pushed back the papers and rose with a horrible grin of malice on his face—'that you will find the air of the Prison salubrious. There have been cases of infectious fever—gaol fever, lately: perhaps the King's Bench and the Fleet are equal in this respect. Small-pox, also, is prevalent in one: but I forget which. Many persons live for years in a Prison. I hope, I am sure, that you will pass—many—many—happy years in that seclusion.'

I listened to none of this ill-omened croaking, but hastened to leave him. At the door I passed the old clerk.

'Go to the King's Bench,' he whispered. 'Not to the Fleet where he'll call every day to learn whether you are dead. There is still time,' he pointed to his throat while he noisily opened the door. 'Round the neck. At the bottom of the River: the lying is more comfortable than in the King's Bench.'

I had entered the house with very little hope. I left it with despair. I walked home as one in a dream, running against people, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. When I reached home I sat down in a kind of stupor.

'My dear,' I said, presently recovering, 'we are lost—we are ruined. I shall starve in a Prison. Thou wilt beg thy bread. The boy will be a gutter brat.'

'Tell me,' Alice took my hand. 'Oh! tell me all—my dear. Can we be lost if we are together?'

'We shall not be together. To-morrow I shall be in the Prison. For how long God only knows.'

'Since He knows, my dear, keep up your heart. When was the righteous man forsaken? Come, let us talk. There may be some means found. If we were to pay—though we owe nothing—so much a week.'

'Alice, it is not the debt. There is no debt. It is revenge, and the hope——'

I did not finish—what I would have added was, 'The hope that I may die of gaol fever or something.' 'My dear, be brave and let us arrange. First, I lose my situation in the Church and at the Gardens. Next, we must provide for the child and for thyself outside the prison. No, my dear, if the Lord permits us to live any other way the child shall not be brought up a prison bird.'