give you the money?" asked the Captain.

"No; I had it by me" replies Mrs. Walker, with a very knowing look.

Walker was more surprised than ever. "Have you any more by you?" said
he.

Mrs. Walker showed him her purse with two guineas. "That is all, love,"
she said. "And I wish," continued she, "you would give me a draft to pay
a whole list of little bills that have somehow all come in within the
last few days."

"Well, well, you shall have the cheque," continued Mr. Walker, and began
forthwith to make his toilet, which completed, he rang for Mr. Bendigo,
and his bill, and intimated his wish to go home directly.

The honoured bailiff brought the bill, but with regard to his being
free, said it was impossible.

"How impossible?" said Mrs. Walker, turning very red: and then very
pale. "Did I not pay just now?"

"So you did, and you've got the reshipt; but there's another detainer
against the Captain for a hundred and fifty. Eglantine and Mossrose, of
Bond Street;--perfumery for five years, you know."

"You don't mean to say you were such a fool as to pay without asking if
there were any more detainers?" roared Walker to his wife.

"Yes, she was though," chuckled Mr. Bendigo; "but she'll know better the
next time: and, besides, Captain, what's a hundred and fifty pounds to
you?"

Though Walker desired nothing so much in the world at that moment as
the liberty to knock down his wife, his sense of prudence overcame his
desire for justice: if that feeling may be called prudence on his part,
which consisted in a strong wish to cheat the bailiff into the idea that
he (Walker) was an exceedingly respectable and wealthy man. Many worthy
persons indulge in this fond notion, that they are imposing upon the
world; strive to fancy, for instance, that their bankers consider
them men of property because they keep a tolerable balance, pay little
tradesmen's bills with ostentatious punctuality, and so forth--but the
world, let us be pretty sure, is as wise as need be, and guesses our
real condition with a marvellous instinct, or learns it with curious
skill. The London tradesman is one of the keenest judges of human nature
extant; and if a tradesman, how much more a bailiff? In reply to the
ironic question, "What's a hundred and fifty pounds to you?" Walker,
collecting himself, answers, "It is an infamous imposition, and I owe
the money no more than you do; but, nevertheless, I shall instruct
my lawyers to pay it in the cour