hat this seems to me a very fair
proposal. My client, I may say, would personally have preferred a
different course, and would like to bind himself to pay in full at some
future time, but I cannot advise any such promise, for I do not think he
would be able to keep it."

"I shall want some security for the half-crown," said Mr. Crook,
representative of the firm of Jenkins, Crook, and Hardman, iron merchants
in Staffordshire.

"Can't say as I'm satisfied," said Mr. Nagle, brass founder. "The debtor
takes an expensive house without any warranty, and he cannot expect much
consideration. I must have ten shillings now. Times are bad for us as
well as for him."

Mr. Furze turned very white and rose to speak, but Mr. Askew pulled him
down.

"I beg, gentlemen, you will not take extreme measures. Ten shillings now
would mean a sale of furniture, and perhaps ruin. My client has been a
good customer to you."

"I am inclined to agree with Mr. Nagle," said Mr. Crook. "Sentiment is
all very well, but I do not see why we should make the debtor a present
of half a crown for a couple of years. For my own part, if I want to be
generous with my money, I have plenty of friends of my own to whom to
give it."

There was a pause, but it was clear that Mr. Nagle's proposal would be
carried.

"I am authorised," said a tall gentleman at the back of the room, whom
Mr. Askew knew to be Mr. Carruthers, of Cambridge, head of the firm of
Carruthers, Doubleday, Carruthers and Pearse, one of the most respectable
legal firms in the county, "to offer payment in full at once."

"It is a pity," said Mr. Nagle, "that this offer could not have been made
before. We might have been saved the trouble of coming here."

"Pardon me," replied Mr. Carruthers; "my client has been abroad for some
time, and did not return till last night."

The February in which the meeting of Mr. Furze's creditors took place was
unusually wet. There had been a deep snow in January, with the wind from
the north-east. The London coaches had, many of them, been stopped both
on the Norwich, Cambridge, and Great North roads. The wind had driven
with terrible force across the flat country, piling up the snow in great
drifts, and curling it in fantastic waves which hung suspended over the
hedges and entirely obliterated them. Between Eaton Socon and Huntingdon
one of the York coaches was fairly buried, and the passengers, after
being near death's door with cold and