the
fees I am to receive with this youth; so you see, after all, there is no
mystery about it. Better not wait for to-morrow, Cotsdean. Go at once,
and get it settled. You see," said Mr. May, ingratiatingly, "it is a
little larger than the other--one hundred and fifty, indeed--but that
does not matter with such an excellent name."

"Tozer!" said Cotsdean, once more bewildered. He handled the piece of
paper nervously, and turned it upside down, and round about, with a
sense that it might melt in his hold. He did not like the additional
fifty added. Why should another fifty be added? but so it was, and there
seemed nothing for him but to take the immediate relief and be thankful.

"I'd rather, sir, as Tozer hadn't known nothing about it; and why should
he back a bill for me as ain't one of my friends, nor don't know nothing
about me? and fifty more added on," said Cotsdean. It was the nearest he
had gone to standing up against his clergyman; he did not like it. To be
Mr. May's sole stand-by and agent, even at periodical risk of ruin, was
possible to him; but a pang of jealousy, alarm, and pain came into his
mind when he saw the new name. This even obliterated the immediate sense
of relief that was in his mind.

"Come three months it'll have to be paid," said Cotsdean, "and Tozer
ain't a man to stand it if he's left to pay; he'd sell us up, Mr. May.
He ain't one of the patient ones, like--some other folks; and there's
fifty pounds put on. I don't see my way to it. I'd rather it was just
the clear hundred, if it was the same to you."

"It is not the same to me," said Mr. May, calmly. "Come, there is no
cause to make any fuss. There it is, and if you don't like to make use
of it, you must find some better way. Bring the fifty pounds, less the
expenses, to me to-night. It is a good bit of paper, and it delivers us
out of a mess which I hope we shall not fall into again."

"So you said before, sir," said the corn-factor sullenly.

"Cotsdean, you forget yourself; but I can make allowance for your
anxiety. Take it, and get it settled before the bank closes; pay in the
money to meet the other bill, and bring me the balance. You will find no
difficulty with Tozer's name; and what so likely as that one respectable
tradesman should help another? By the way, the affair is a private one
between us, and it is unnecessary to say anything to him about it; the
arrangement, you understand, is between him and me."

"Beg your pardon,