ft alone, did not read the papers which
Thompson brought him; but sat, instead, thinking of his five hundred
pounds. "Just put them down," he said to Thompson. So the papers were
put down, and there they lay all that day and all the next. Then
Thompson took them away again, and it is to be hoped that somebody
read them. Five hundred pounds! It was a large sum of money, and
Crosbie was a man for whom Mr. Butterwell in truth felt no very
strong affection. "Of course he must have it now," he said to
himself. "But where should I be if anything happened to him?" And
then he remembered that Mrs. Butterwell especially disliked Mr
Crosbie,--disliked him because she knew that he snubbed her husband.
"But it's hard to refuse, when one man has known another for more
than ten years." Then he comforted himself somewhat with the
reflection, that Crosbie would no doubt make himself more pleasant
for the future than he had done lately, and with a second reflection,
that Crosbie's life was a good life,--and with a third, as to his own
great goodness, in assisting a brother officer. Nevertheless, as he
sat looking out of the omnibus window, on his journey home to Putney,
he was not altogether comfortable in his mind. Mrs. Butterwell was a
very prudent woman.

But Crosbie was very comfortable in his mind on that afternoon. He
had hardly dared to hope for success, but he had been successful. He
had not even thought of Butterwell as a possible fountain of supply,
till his mind had been brought back to the affairs of his office,
by the voice of Sir Raffle Buffle at the corner of the street. The
idea that his bill would be dishonoured, and that tidings of his
insolvency would be conveyed to the Commissioners at his Board,
had been dreadful to him. The way in which he had been treated by
Musselboro and Dobbs Broughton had made him hate City men, and what
he supposed to be City ways. Now there had come to him a relief which
suddenly made everything feel light. He could almost think of Mr
Mortimer Gazebee without disgust. Perhaps after all there might be
some happiness yet in store for him. Might it not be possible that
Lily would yet accept him in spite of the chilling letter,--the
freezing letter which he had received from Lily's mother? Of one
thing he was quite certain. If ever he had the opportunity of
pleading his own cause with her, he certainly would tell her
everything respecting his own money difficulties.

In that last resolve I th