ork
was in the City; and at such a time as this and in such a crisis as
this, he should have been in the City. Men will whisper forgery behind
a man's back who would not dare even to think it before his face.

Of this particular rumour our young friend Dolly Longestaffe was the
parent. With unhesitating resolution, nothing awed by his father,
Dolly had gone to his attorney, Mr Squercum, immediately after that
Friday on which Mr Longestaffe first took his seat at the Railway
Board. Dolly was possessed of fine qualities, but it must be owned
that veneration was not one of them. 'I don't know why Mr Melmotte is
to be different from anybody else,' he had said to his father. 'When I
buy a thing and don't pay for it, it is because I haven't got the tin,
and I suppose it's about the same with him. It's all right, no doubt,
but I don't see why he should have got hold of the place till the
money was paid down.'

'Of course it's all right,' said the father. 'You think you understand
everything, when you really understand nothing at all.'

'Of course I'm slow,' said Dolly. 'I don't comprehend these things.
But then Squercum does. When a fellow is stupid himself, he ought to
have a sharp fellow to look after his business.'

'You'll ruin me and yourself too, if you go to such a man as that. Why
can't you trust Mr Bideawhile? Slow and Bideawhile have been the
family lawyers for a century.' Dolly made some remark as to the old
family advisers which was by no means pleasing to the father's ears,
and went his way. The father knew his boy, and knew that his boy would
go to Squercum. All he could himself do was to press Mr Melmotte for
the money with what importunity he could assume. He wrote a timid
letter to Mr Melmotte, which had no result; and then, on the next
Friday, again went into the City and there encountered perturbation of
spirit and sheer loss of time,--as the reader has already learned.

Squercum was a thorn in the side of all the Bideawhiles. Mr Slow had
been gathered to his fathers, but of the Bideawhiles there were three
in the business, a father and two sons, to whom Squercum was a pest
and a musquito, a running sore and a skeleton in the cupboard. It was
not only in reference to Mr Longestaffe's affairs that they knew
Squercum. The Bideawhiles piqued themselves on the decorous and
orderly transaction of their business. It had grown to be a rule in
the house that anything done quickly must be done badly. They never