to-night?" asked
Mr. Whedell. "Have a payment to make before bank hours to-morrow."

"Most readily, my dear sir," replied the amiable Matthew. "Have you pen
and paper convenient?"

"In this room, Mr. Maltboy," said his host, ushering him into a little
apartment at the end of the entry, which contained a few books, and was
passed off upon a credulous world as Mr. Whedell's library. The gas was
lighted, writing materials were produced, and, in less than three
minutes, Matthew Maltboy had put his name at the bottom of a check on
the ---- Bank, for two hundred dollars. He did so smiling, and with a
full consciousness that he had sustained a dead loss to that extent. But
he was always too good-natured to deny a friend; and, in this particular
case, he felt that he was buying a perpetual free admission to the
house, and a usufructuary interest in the fascinations of Clementina.
The idea of marriage with that young lady had never occurred to him. He
never troubled himself with problems of the future.

"All right," said Mr. Whedell, folding up the check carelessly, and
putting it in his pocket. "Shall I give you my note?"

"Oh, no!" said the willing victim, blandly. "Hand it me any time, at
your convenience."

"Can return it within a week," responded Mr. Whedell; "but, on some
accounts, the 1st of May will suit me best, if perfectly agreeable
to you."

"As you please."

"We will call it the 1st of May, then. I regret you are in a hurry, sir.
But remember, we are always happy to see you here."

With this pleasant remark ringing in his ears, and fully compensating
him for the loss of his two hundred dollars, Maltboy hastened home, but
did not tell his friends of his adventure; but he smoked and mused over
it agreeably, and was totally unmindful of the truth announced by Mr.
Quigg on New Year's day, when speaking of this same Whedell, that
"somehow debtors always give the cold shoulder to creditors, as if the
creditors owed the money."

Mr. Whedell, left to his own society, flattered himself that he had
turned a rejected lover to a good account, and entered his library and
sat down in the cold, that he might not, by his presence, mar the
harmonious progress of the courtship upon which so much depended, in
the parlor.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FIRST OF MAY.

Mr. Chiffield proposed, was accepted, and was married in a Broadway
church about the middle of April. The affair was simplicity
itself--bridesmaids, groomsmen, co