etty well, and worked me nicely with all your professional
cant. I don't recollect how much I've had in cash--I did put it down on
old envelopes, but they're lost--but I know that those pictures and the
wines were horrible stuff; and one way and another you've made those
bills grow till now they amount to--"

"Four thou--"

"There--there, that'll do; I can't pay it, so what's the good of
bothering one about how much it is? I've got it down somewhere, I tell
you, and perhaps I can find it when I want to know, and I don't now.
Well, as I was going to say, you've made the bills grow to that size,
now make them grow a little bigger."

His lordship yawned, stretched himself, and then poured some pale brandy
into a coffee-cup, before filling it with the rich fluid in the biggin.

"Totally impossible, my lord," said the money-lender, rising. "I'm very
sorry, my lord, but I must set the law to work. I have, as you well
know, always been most desirous of aiding you during pressing
necessities; and when unable to help you myself, I have always
introduced you to some one who would. But, to speak plainly, this trip
of yours to Italy, without a word to me first--"

"Why, confound it all! was I to come and ask you if I might go abroad?"
exclaimed his lordship, furiously.

"Oh, dear me, no! Of course not, my lord; but as I was saying, this
trip to Italy looks so much like trying to bilk me, that I must, for my
own sake--"

"And that of the gentleman in the City," sneered his lordship.

"No, my lord, I don't do business with men in the City," said the Jew,
in injured tones; "and for my own sake alone I must take strenuous
measures for the recovery of the debt."

"'Tisn't a debt: it's only a money-lending affair," growled his
lordship.

"Well--well, we won't argue upon that point, my lord. The Sheriff of
Middlesex has his ideas upon these matters--ideas in which I have
implicit confidence."

"Here, Braham; I say; come, no nonsense. Don't be a fool, you know.
Don't be hard on a fellow because he's bilious and put out!" exclaimed
his lordship, who, with the immediate prospect of a sponging-house
before him, displayed an unwonted degree of perturbation. "But, I say,
you can't--you know you can't do any thing yet;" and his lordship's face
brightened.

The Jew laughed.

"Your lordship forgets. Hyman has a little affair out against you,
which will just work in well with mine. I shouldn't be surprised if
some one i