sbie's personal dignity. It
was hardly as yet two months since Mr. Dobbs Broughton had assured him
in that very room that there need not be the slightest anxiety about
his bill. Of course it could be renewed,--the commission being duly
paid. As Mr. Dobbs Broughton explained on that occasion, that was his
business. There was nothing he liked so much as renewing bills for
such customers as Mr. Crosbie; and he was very candid at that meeting,
explaining how he did this branch of his business, raising money on
his own credit at four or five per cent., and lending it on his own
judgment at eight or nine. Mr. Crosbie did not feel himself then
called upon to exclaim that what he was called upon to pay was about
twelve, perfectly understanding the comfort and grace of euphony; but
he had turned it over in his mind, considering whether twelve per
cent. was not more than he ought to be mulcted for the accommodation
he wanted. Now, at the moment, he would have been glad to get it from
Mr. Musselboro, without further words, for twenty.

Things had much changed with Adolphus Crosbie when he was driven to
make morning visits to such a one as Mr. Musselboro with the view of
having a bill renewed for two hundred and fifty pounds. In his early
life he had always had the merit of being a careful man as to money.
In some other respects he had gone astray very foolishly,--as has
been partly explained in our earlier chapters; but up to the date
of his marriage with Lady Alexandrina De Courcy he had never had
dealings in Hook Court or in any such locality. Money troubles
had then come upon him. Lady Alexandrina, being the daughter of a
countess, had high ideas; and when, very shortly after his marriage,
he had submitted to a separation from his noble wife, he had found
himself and his income to be tied up inextricably in the hands of
one Mr. Mortimer Gazebee, a lawyer who had married one of his wife's
sisters. It was not that Mr. Gazebee was dishonest; nor did Crosbie
suspect him of dishonesty; but the lawyer was so wedded to the
interest of the noble family with which he was connected, that he
worked for them all, as an inferior spider might be supposed to
work, which, from the infirmity of its nature, was compelled by
its instincts to be catching flies always for superior spiders. Mr
Mortimer Gazebee had in this way entangled Mr. Crosbie in his web on
behalf of those noble spiders, the De Courcys, and our poor friend,
in his endeavour to