e
effect was the following letter from Mr. Sowerby to his friend Mark
Robarts:--

Chaldicotes, July, 185--.

MY DEAR ROBARTS,

I am so harassed at the present moment by an infinity
of troubles of my own that I am almost callous to those
of other people. They say that prosperity makes a man
selfish. I have never tried that, but I am quite sure that
adversity does so. Nevertheless I am anxious about those
bills of yours--

"Bills of mine!" said Robarts to himself, as he walked up and down
the shrubbery path at the parsonage, reading this letter. This
happened a day or two after his visit to the lawyer at Barchester.

--and would rejoice greatly if I thought that I could save
you from any further annoyance about them. That kite, Tom
Tozer, has just been with me, and insists that both of
them shall be paid. He knows--no one better--that no
consideration was given for the latter. But he knows also
that the dealing was not with him, nor even with his
brother, and he will be prepared to swear that he gave
value for both. He would swear anything for five hundred
pounds--or for half the money, for that matter. I do not
think that the father of mischief ever let loose upon the
world a greater rascal than Tom Tozer.

He declares that nothing shall induce him to take one
shilling less than the whole sum of nine hundred pounds.
He has been brought to this by hearing that my debts are
about to be paid. Heaven help me! The meaning of that is
that these wretched acres, which are now mortgaged to
one millionaire, are to change hands and be mortgaged to
another instead. By this exchange I may possibly obtain
the benefit of having a house to live in for the next
twelve months, but no other. Tozer, however, is altogether
wrong in his scent; and the worst of it is that his malice
will fall on you rather than on me.

What I want you to do is this: let us pay him one hundred
pounds between us. Though I sell the last sorry jade of a
horse I have, I will make up fifty; and I know you can, at
any rate, do as much as that. Then do you accept a bill,
conjointly with me, for eight hundred. It shall be done
in Forrest's presence, and handed to him; and you shall
receive back the two old bills into your own hands at the
same time. This new bill should be timed to run ninety
days; and I will move heaven and earth, du