The bill itself, considering the prospects of the acceptor, was not for a very alarming amount. He was heir to a baronetcy and £50,000 per annum. The bill was for “a monkey”—or, in more intelligible phraseology than that usually adopted by the acceptor himself, for the sum of five hundred pounds sterling. The extraordinary circumstance about the bill was that the acceptor, Harry Jermyn, paid Abednego, of Throgmorton Street, interest at the rate of sixty per cent. per annum for the accommodation, and that in addition he had to take part of the proceeds in the shape of a park hack, which he found difficulty in selling to a cab proprietor for a five-pound note. The consideration deducted from the bill in respect of this animal was fifty pounds.Harry Jermyn was a mauvais sujet; that is to say, he was a young gentleman kept by his father on a short allowance. He gambled a little, went to all the races, was a member of the Raleigh and other social centres of a similar kind, and evinced a considerable interest in the drama—that is to say, at theatres where the sacred lamp was kept burning. In fact, he resembled hundreds of other young men of our acquaintance; and probably he would not have been called a mauvais sujet were it not that the old baronet restricted him to means inadequate to supply his simple desires.

Mr. Abednego was not a mauvais sujet. He was a most respectable man; had a house in Mayfair, another in Richmond, and a mansion in Scotland which he modestly called his shooting box. He occasionally entertained live lords, who borrowed his money and sneered at him behind his back. He had contrived to obtain a seat on a county bench, and was a Colonel of Volunteers in the same happy county, by reason of which he was known to society at large as Colonel Abednego.

When Harry Jermyn’s bill fell due he rushed down in a hansom to Abednego’s office in Throgmorton Street, and was—after an ominous delay—admitted to the sanctum of the great Abednego himself. That potentate did not rise, but nodded quickly to his visitor, with a short, and by no means encouraging, “Mornin’.”

Harry was a man with a fine flow of animal spirits, and was not to be dashed by the studied coolness of his reception.

“I say, old chappie,” he replied, with the greatest good humour, “what’s the matter? Feel a little chippy this morning? or lost a point or two at sixpenny whist last night—eh?”

“Mr. Jermyn, this is the City,” said the money-lender. “What is your business?”

“Well, the fact is, old boy,” answered Jermyn, sitting on the edge of the table opposite the financier, “that damn bill of mine falls due to-morrow.”

“Well?”

“And of course you’ll renew?”

“Of course I’ll do nothing of the kind,” answered Abednego, rising and taking out his watch.Harry’s jaw fell considerably. His former experience of this exemplary man had not prepared him for this. It had only prepared him for the incurring of fresh interest and the possession of park hacks anything but fresh.

“But look here, old man, I must have the coin, don’t you know?”

Young Jermyn considered this sort of argument unanswerable. His host resumed his seat, and looking the young man in the face, said,—

“Well, I found her expensive myself. I’m not surprised that you do.”

Harry jumped from his seat on the table, and exclaimed, “What in Hades do you mean?”

“I mean Baby Somerville of the Frivolity.”

“You scoundrel!” shouted the borrower, “she is my wife. I have married her.”

“You lie,” quietly answered Mr. Abednego.

Of course a blow followed. When Abednego had pulled himself together, and wiped the blood from his face, he said, in tones now quivering with rage,—

“You young scoundrel, you shall suffer for this!”That was the end of the interview. Jermyn withdrew at once, wrathful and defeated, and next day the bill for “a monkey” was dishonoured.

Now, strange as it may appear, Harry Jermyn had really married Baby Somerville of the Frivolity, a shapely, vain, and heartless woman, incapable of an affection, except perhaps for some brute of a chorus man. There was a period in her career, however, when she was considered chic by a certain number of men about town. Jermyn unfortunately allowed his passion to take an honourable direction. He wanted to have her all to himself; and she, knowing him to be heir to a baronetcy, without any conventional coyness consented to be his wife. But at the time of his marriage, and until he heard it on the day before his bill was dishonoured, he had no suspicion that Abednego had been among the admirers of his wife; and when he taxed her with it, she denied the fact with such accent of sincerity that he clasped her to his heart and called her by a hundred endearing names. He was, you see, an indubitable mauvais sujet.Mr. and Mrs. Jermyn were spending the early days of their married life on the upper Thames, where, to her credit be it said, the lady affected a pretty interest in waving corn, and floating lily leaves, and shrilling larks, and other beauties which, I am told, abound in the neighbourhood of that incomparable stream; and, on the Sunday following the unpleasant interview with the magnate of Throgmorton Street, Mr. Jermyn was sculling his young bride in the skiff which he had purchased for her, and called after her name.

It was a glorious July day, and the river was crowded with craft of every description.

The lock at — was open and half full when they reached it. Jermyn took his skiff gently in, and held on to the side of a launch, the deck of which was crowded with laughing women and men in gorgeous array. In the cabin a lunch was laid, and cases of champagne reposed pleasantly in the stern. Jermyn cursed his indiscretion a moment after, when he discovered that a number of the sirens on deck were members of the Frivolity chorus. But the worst was to come. Abednego, flashing with diamonds, exquisitely raddled as to his cheeks, stood at the tiller, and addressing Mrs. Jermyn, said, with an air of easy familiarity,—

“Hallo, Baby, how are you gettin’ on, eh?”

That was bad enough, but when Harry turned sharply round on his wife, he saw her big eyes turned longingly on the resplendent Hebrew, and her smile cast boldly on his painted countenance. At that moment the devil entered into Jermyn’s soul as surely as ever it took possession of the Gadarene swine. His lips turned blue, his face was livid; but he made no other sign. His was the last boat to leave the lock. He rowed steadily on, and never spoke to the woman he had loved so well and so unwisely.

Mr. Abednego had enjoyed a real good time on board the launch, and on his way down stopped at the famous riparian village of —. Here also Jermyn landed some time after. He sent his wife home by train, and put up at the same hotel as that occupied by his opulent rival.

No one ever knew how it happened. Close to the village there is a lock, and by the lock is what is called a hook—a horseshoe of water running round from a point above it, and, after making a vast circuit, emerging at a point below. For the most part this hook is shallow, but in places it is deep as the wells described by Herodotus. At six o’clock on the following morning, Abednego, who was fond of the water, repaired to a remote part of the hook. Five minutes after Harry Jermyn also proceeded to the bathing place. He must, however, have selected a spot out of sight of the “Colonel,” for that gentleman was unfortunately drowned without Jermyn’s even having seen him. A certain mark was discovered round Abednego’s throat, but the coroner very sagely informed the jury that with that they had nothing to do—it might be a mark of long-standing. Mr. Jermyn volunteered evidence as to having seen nobody in the vicinity of the hook. Verdict in accordance with such evidence as was produced—“Accidental death.”

Six months afterwards the famous case of Jermyn v. Jermyn, Smith, Jones, and Another was heard, which, as the public will recollect, resulted in a verdict for the husband, who is now a prematurely aged and curiously reticent man—the inheritor of a baronetcy and fifty thousand pounds a year.