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"He looked more of a fine gentleman than 'tis well a man of his position should," replied Madame severely. "If he would take more pains to save money for his old age, and less to pass for a man of fashion, 'twould be better for both of us."
"But with so charming a wife, and with such advantages of education, a man of romantic temper might be pardoned for forgetting that he was not born in the purple," pleaded Topsparkle. "But I distract you from your narrative. You were about to say – "
"Oh, sir, could you but have seen my husband at four o'clock this morning, when he came back from his orgy."
"The word is severe, madam. Was he intoxicated?"
"Worse than that, sir. He was white as death, and trembling in every limb. He had tried to walk home, but had well nigh fallen in the street, when the chance of an empty coach saved him. He seemed as if he were struck speechless, would answer none of my questions, and let me help him to bed like a baby. Yet it was not losing his money which had overcome his senses, for the guineas fell out of his pockets and strewed the carpet as if it had been raining gold. He lay moaning half the night, till he fell into a kind of stupor."
"Did he rave as on the previous night?"
"Not one intelligible word has he uttered since he came home."
"Strange. It looks like some kind of seizure. Have you sent for a doctor?"
"No, sir; I was afraid for any one to see him in such a condition, lest it should get about the neighbourhood that he is a lunatic, and spoil our business."
"You are a vastly sensible woman, an excellent prudent creature," exclaimed Topsparkle, with enthusiasm. "Let not a mortal see him till he has got his reason again. Should it once be rumoured that he is out of his mind, you would be undone."
"I have spoken to your honour with perfect candour, as my poor husband's patron and friend," returned Madame meekly.
"You have done wisely, my good soul. I am your husband's best friend, and your only safe adviser. It is evident that he has got himself into a condition that is but one step from madness, and madness in this country is a terrible thing. It means the loss of all a man's rights as a citizen, it means the confiscation of his property, upon which the iron clutch of the High Court of Chancery swoops down like the claw of a vulture. It means that from comfortable circumstances a maniac's family may be reduced to paupers."
"O, sir, protect me from such a calamity."
"Do not fear, sweet soul. You shall be protected. Should the worst come, and your husband must needs be removed, it shall be my sacred care to provide for you. Two hundred a year in Paris, where you might, perhaps, return to the profession which you so much adorned."
"O, sir, you have, indeed, the soul of a great nobleman. It was the dream of my girlhood to live in Paris."
"The nest shall be found for you, poor bird, if the tempest of calamity should ever blow you hence," murmured Topsparkle, patting her plump hand.
"But indeed, sir, we will hope my poor husband will recover his reason, and learn better sense," resumed Madame, after a few moments' reflection. "I am very fond of Poland Street, and this business would be a fortune for us if Fétis would leave off play."
"My dear soul, he has gone too far. He will never be cured. When a man of his age gambles or drinks, the chances of cure are nil."
"Would you like to see him, sir?"
Topsparkle suppressed a shudder.
"Better not, madam. I should but agitate him by my presence. I will call on you to-morrow, when he may be in a better condition to converse with me."
He kissed Madame's fair hand, and bowed himself out of her presence. He walked along Poland Street, across Golden Square, westward to St. James's Street, with that light and easy motion which had become natural to him, the bearing of an elderly man who never meant to be old, who defied age to wither him, and who conquered the insidious foe called Time, by being in all things younger than youth itself. Yonder gallant guardsman of five-and-twenty on the opposite pavement moved heavily compared with the airy grace with which Topsparkle skimmed the street. He had trained every muscle, schooled every sinew in the long fight against senility. By his temperance and his activity he had contrived so far to have the best of the battle. The day of defeat must come sooner or later, he knew, and he had steeled himself to contemplate the end with a cynical courage. "May it be sharp and swift," he said; "may I crumble to pieces in an hour, like an embalmed corpse which is suddenly exposed to the air after two thousand years in an Egyptian sepulchre."
To-day, though his mind was full of perplexity, his movements and the carriage of his head were as jaunty as ever. No one who saw those dainty red-heeled shoes tripping along, and the careless swing of that slender rapier, would have supposed that Mr. Topsparkle was meditating anything more serious than the last quarrel between the Cuzzoni faction and the Faustina faction at the opera house, or the last wild exploit of mad-cap Peterborough at Bevis Mount.
What was to be done with this worn-out tool of his, which was getting dangerous? That was the question. It had never occurred to Vyvyan Topsparkle that his accomplice would not last as long as himself; that this slave of his, who had done his bidding with an unscrupulous obedience which indicated a mind utterly callous to the distinction between right and wrong, should at the eleventh hour develop a guilty conscience and all its attendant inconveniences.
"It is not conscience," thought Topsparkle savagely. "The man cares no more for that false feeble creature who lies in St. Anne's churchyard than he cares for St. Anne herself. It is brandy and not conscience that moves him. He has destroyed his nerves by intemperance, and must needs call up the dead to torment himself and endanger me. A madhouse – yes, that is the safest abode for a gentleman in this disposition. I have only to find out a safe asylum, and then, presto, my friend Fétis shall be bestowed where a strait waistcoat will tame his antics, and the free use of the gag will put a stop to his invocations of the dead. A mad-doctor and a private madhouse – that is what I have to find without loss of time."
Then, after walking a little further, cudgelling his brain in the effort to remember all he had ever heard about the incarceration of madmen in England, he reverted to a question which was more perplexing to him than the ravings of Fétis.
"Lavendale, que diable allait il faire dans cette galère? what the deuce can impel Lavendale to patronise my valet? and why should his lordship's society revive old associations with Venice, and reduce the man from semi-lunacy to dumb melancholic madness, as I doubt his state must be to-day, if his wife speaks truth? There is mystery and mischief here, and I cannot too soon protect myself from the chances of awkward revelations. There must be some private way of dealing with madmen, without shutting them up in that great hospital by London Wall, where all the world may see them at a penny a head, easier and cheaper than the lions in the Tower. I remember how Lavendale and his friend were struck by that marvellous likeness between Miss Bosworth and Margharita; yet what should come of that, an accidental resemblance, curious, but of no significance? I almost hated that girl for the shock her face gave me every time we met. It was a constant oppression to my spirits to have her in my house. And now they say Durnford has run away with her, and married her at Keith's Chapel, and that her father has thrown her off in consequence, so that my gentleman has but a penniless beauty for his partner in life, and no doubt will soon repent his bargain. Why should Lavendale invite my valet? O, a whim, no doubt, a trick, a practical joke, such as Wharton and his Schemers used to hatch t'other day – some conspiracy against a woman's peace or reputation. Something modish, witty, and iniquitous, no doubt. Why should I fancy there is mischief to me amidst such random follies? But the fact remains that Fétis has taken to blabbing, and must be gagged. Yes, my poor, good, faithful, self-serving servant, you were a very convenient and useful person so long as you knew how to hold your tongue, but now you have turned babbler you must be provided for accordingly. The wife can be easily dealt with. She is vain, silly, and selfish, and can be bought cheap."
Mr. Topsparkle was now in St. James's Street, in front of White's chocolate house, which was one of his chief resorts when he wanted to kill time between the morning undress saunter in the Mall and the afternoon parade in the Ring. 'Twas here he heard the latest news of the town, such floating scandals as had not yet been transfixed by the Flying Post or the St. James's Journal; and it was here he met the innumerable gentlemen who were pleased to be bosom friends with one of the richest men in London.
"Why, Top," exclaimed one of these gentry – an easy-going young gentleman, who had spent a brace of fortunes, his own and his wife's, and so deemed he had earned the right to live upon his friends and the general public – "thou art younger by ten years than thou wert last week. Thou look'st like Hyperion new lighted on a heaven-kissing hill."
"And thou, Chambers, wast at the playhouse last night, I take it; and supped on champagne afterwards, and art not yet sober," answered Mr. Topsparkle somewhat coolly, as he seated himself at his favourite table.
"Thou hast hit the mark, Top. Invite me to a dish of tea, and sober me; I have not the price of one in my pocket."
"Sit down then, and behave decently while the Bohea is brewing."
"Pekoe, friend, Pekoe; nothing like Pekoe to clear the fumes of last night's wine. Do you hear, waiter; Mr. Topsparkle's chocolate à la vanille, and a dish of your strongest Pekoe for Mr. Topsparkle's friend, with cream, scoundrel, with plenty of cream."
White's was full at this leisure hour before dinner, and there were many greetings for Mr. Topsparkle, of a less exuberant but no less friendly tone than that of Captain Chambers. He sipped his chocolate in a leisurely manner, looked about him, and listened, returned every salutation, kissed his hand to acquaintances at the further end of the room, and said very little. He was wondering which of all these men was most likely to be of use to him in the matter he had in hand. He wanted to obtain information of a peculiar character without appearing too curious on the subject. He wanted to be advised without asking for anybody's advice.
At any other time he would have received Captain Chambers's familiar advances with an icy reserve; but to-day he was inclined to be indulgent; for he told himself that Chambers was just the kind of scamp who might be useful in an emergency; a man who, with his last guinea, had parted with his last scruple, a perfect specimen of the relentless gentlemanly villain, without heart, conscience, or honour, a scourge to confiding tradesmen, a traitor to trusting women, a bad son, a bad husband, a worse father, and a very pleasant fellow to fill a gap at a dinner-party.
"How's your wife, Bob?" asked a man at the next table. "I saw her in the Ring a week ago in the old dowager's carriage, looking as ill as if she was going to die and give you the chance of an heiress."
"Egad, I shall have to commit bigamy if she doesn't; so for conscience' sake she ought to give up the ghost," answered Chambers. "I have been seriously meditating running off with an Irish heiress, under a false name, and settling in some corner of her barbarous country, where I could live upon her fortune, and escape all the vexations of this accursed town."
"I don't think you should anathematise a town, Bob, which has allowed you to cut a very pretty figure and to spend twice your fortune," said his friend.
"O, your damned shopkeepers have been civil enough," answered Chambers, lolling back in his chair and picking his teeth languidly. "I had a bevy of them in my dressing-room every morning teasing me for orders long after I was absolutely insolvent. But 'twas my tailor finished me."
"Indeed! How was that? Surely he never caught you in so soft a mood as to pay him?"
"O, it was a bite of the most diabolical nature. 'Twas soon after I married that the fellow began to get importunate. I had run up a pretty long bill with him – birthday-suits, hunting clothes, an occasional hundred on my I O U – when I was hard up for card-money. Your West End snip is generally a money-lender in disguise. I suppose the total must have been close upon four figures; but I had never bothered myself about the matter. One morning the insolent rascal congratulated me upon having married an heiress. No doubt he knew Belle's poor little fortune to a guinea. I thanked him for his compliments in a manner which was as good as telling him to mind his own business, and next week he asked me for five or six hundred on account. 'Shillings, d'ye mean, sirrah?' says I. 'No, Captain, guineas,' says he; 'your bill, including money lent, is over twelve hundred.' This staggered me for I had not a sixpence of my own, and my wife's modest dowry of seven thousand pounds was tightly settled upon herself. I have always thought with Dick Steele that our new fashion of marriage-settlements is the most detestable form of bargaining that was ever invented. Mr. Snip looked black as thunder when I frankly confessed my inability to pay him till I dropped into an expected legacy from my East Indian godfather, who had long been ailing. Need I say that I invented the godfather and the legacy on the spot?"
"And was Snip satisfied to accept your Oriental security?"
"Alas, no. He told me that unless my wife would guarantee the payment of his bill he should be under the painful necessity of consigning me to the Fleet Prison and the tender mercies of that notorious friend of humanity, Governor Bambridge. The fellow was evidently in earnest, so to make a long story short, poor Belle consented to be responsible for the scoundrel's account, and all went merrily for the next three years, when, after worrying damnably with lawyers' letters, of which I naturally took no notice, he put in an execution, and had to be paid off in a lump sum of 6859l. 7s. 11-1/2d., and poor Belle found her fortune was altogether swamped by this one liability."
"How did she take it?" asked his friend.
"Like an angel; and I believe she would have been a loving wife to the end, in spite of all my peccadilloes, debts, cards, and women included; but the old Dowager came swooping down like Medea in her chariot, and carried her lost lamb back to the family fold in Golden Square, where they all pig together upon shoulders of mutton and cow-heel, but contrive to keep up a show of gentility in the way of a worn-out coach and a leash of hungry footmen."
"Very wonderful are the struggles of polite poverty," said the other; "but it is still more wonderful to me, Bob, how you contrive to keep out of the sponging-house, criblé de dettes though you are."
"Ah, that is indeed a miracle," replied Chambers. "I sometimes catch myself wondering at the long-suffering of my creditors. Yet their patience is not altogether unrewarded. I have introduced some very pretty fellows to my old purveyors. There are innocent young gentlemen from the country who would never know where to go for their finery if there wasn't an experienced man of fashion to put them in the right path."
"Ay, Bob, we all understand your pleasant ways. When a man loses the ability to spend on his own account, he may still flourish as the source of spending in others. Tradesmen are always civil to Captain Rook if he visits them in company with Squire Pigeon."
"'Sdeath, Middleton, d'ye mean to insult me?" cried Chambers, with his hand on his sword.
"Nay, Captain, I did but respond in tune with your own ethics, which were never of the strictest."
"Faith, you're right, friend! I was never given to riding the high horse of morality. I spent my money like a gentleman, and any wife's money after it, and have earned the right to take things easily."
"Till you find yourself in the sponging-house, Bob. That evil day must come. All your creditors will not be equally placable."
"Whenever I get into the sponging-house, the odds are I shall be kicked out again for want of funds to make me worth keeping. Your sponging-house, kept by some dirty Jew, and waited on by a drab, is the most expensive hotel in London."
"Then they'll put you among the poor prisoners, and let you fetch and carry for those that are better off. 'Twill be a sorry end for Buck Chambers, the man who used to keep two servants to attend to his jackboots."
"Hang it! 'twas no superfluity of service. No man can be expected to do more than look after three horses or six pairs of boots."
"If they do nab you, Bob," said another friend, who had been attracted from a neighbouring table as the conversation grew louder, Mr. Topsparkle sipping his chocolate silently all the while, and listening in a half-abstracted mood, only reflecting within himself much as Romeo did about the apothecary, that here was a fellow who would do anything for gold; "if the limbs of the law do get you in their clutches, let us hope, for the sake of a world that could scarce exist pleasurably without you, that they won't put you into Marjory's."
"Marjory's! What, the sponging-house in Shoe Lane!" cried Chambers; "'tis an execrable den, but not a whit worse than their other holes. I have hobbed and nobbed with my friends in most of their rat-traps, and know the geography of them. I'd as lief be at Marjory's as anywhere else, if I must needs have the key turned upon me."
"Not just now, Bob; for there was an honest fellow – an Exeter tradesman up in London for a holiday, and arrested by mistake for another – who died of smallpox at Marjory's only yesterday morning; and they say the disease rages in the house, and has done for the last ten days."
The Captain sprang to his feet in a fury.
"And yet they go on taking prisoners there," he cried; "poor innocent wretches, whose only crime is to have lived like gentlemen! What a vile world we live in!"
"A vile world with a vengeance. Marjory's is a gold-mine for Bambridge. He claps all his prisoners into that hell, and makes them pay heavily before he allows them to be removed to the purgatory of another house, or the paradise of prison and chummage. This poor wretch from Exeter had not a stiver about him, so they refused to shift him. He was put in a room with three other men, one of whom was just recovering from the disease. The Exeter man took it badly, and died off-hand."
The Captain put on his hat.
"Farewell, friends," he said; "I'm off by to-night's fast coach to Bristol, and from thence to the wilds of Connemara. I was not born to be carrion for the vulture Bambridge."
He pulled himself together with a debonair movement, and staggered gaily out of the house, amidst the laughter of his friends.
"Was there ever such a good-humoured hardened villain?" exclaimed Middleton; "'tis a perpetual conundrum to me how he keeps out of gaol."
"He will get there some day," said a gentleman of clerical aspect; "our friend will have his pennyworth of prison, with a noose to follow."
Mr. Topsparkle paid his score, and sauntered away.
Not a word had he heard, nor had he made any inquiry, about madhouses, public or private; yet it seemed to him that he was wiser than when he entered the chocolate house, and that he knew all he wanted to know.
CHAPTER VII
THE SMILES OF NATURE AND THE CHARMS OF ART
Mr. Fétis slept until late in the afternoon, and awoke restored to his senses and so far recovered in his health as to be able to dress himself and go down-stairs. He was taking a cup of coffee strengthened with cognac in his wife's parlour when the Topsparkle orange and brown livery again enlivened the doorstep, and a note was handed in at the door.
It was a somewhat urgent summons from Fétis's patron and master.
"If you are well enough to come to me this afternoon, I should like to see you," wrote Mr. Topsparkle; "my messenger will get you a chair."
Fétis told the footman that he was able to walk, and would wait upon Mr. Topsparkle almost immediately. He followed the footman in about five minutes, and was at once admitted to his master's dressing-room, where he found Mr. Topsparkle sitting before the fire, in slippers and a crimson brocade négligé.
"My good Fétis, pray think me not inhuman in sending for you," he exclaimed, in his airiest manner, "but if you have vital power enough to put my head and complexion in order for the evening, it will be a real benevolence on your part. I am to go to an assembly at Henrietta's, and I don't want to look older than poor Mr. Congreve, who has the aspect of a sickly Methuselah."
"I do not believe her Grace thinks so, sir," said Fétis, going over to the toilet-table and beginning to arrange his arsenal of little china pots and crystal bottles, brushes and sponges, and hare's-feet.
"O, for her he is always Adonis. But he grows daily more wrinkled and mummified, and he paints as badly as Kneller at his worst, which is saying much," replied Topsparkle, seating himself in front of the glass, a Venetian mirror, framed in filagree silver, which ought to have reflected beauty as young and fresh as Belinda's. "And so, my poor friend," he continued with a sympathetic air, "you have been very ill. May I ask the nature of your malady?"
"I was as near death as I could be, I believe, sir," answered Fétis gloomily, still occupied with cosmetics and paint-brushes, and going on with his work as he spoke. "You will laugh at me doubtless when I tell you the cause of my indisposition, for you have a lighter nature than mine, or you could scarce live contentedly in this house."
"I have less education, and more philosophy, Fétis. That is the secret of my easier temper."
"I saw a ghost last night, sir," said Fétis, beginning his operations on his master's complexion.
"Indeed, my dear Fétis, I am told they swarm in the neighbourhood of Bloomsbury, where I hear you spent last midnight in most patrician society."
"How did you know where I spent my evening?" gasped Fétis.
"A little bird, my dear friend, a sweet little singing bird. Our London groves are vocal with such airy songsters. Pray keep your hand steady. God's curse, fellow, that wash of yours is revolting when 'tis not laid on smoothly. You are too thick over the right temple."
There was a pause, during which Fétis finished his ground-colour and outlined an eyebrow with a miniature-painter's pencil.
"And so you saw a ghost last night. Was it in Denmark Street, St. Giles's, as you reeled homewards after your orgy?"
"No, sir, 'twas before I left Lord Lavendale's house. I had supped with his lordship and Mr. Durnford – "
"A fellow I hate!" interrupted Topsparkle; "a sinister, prying knave!"
"We had played cards for an hour or so, and I had been sole winner. I was in excellent spirits, elated, rejuvenated by my good luck. I had to pass through a suite of cold and empty rooms, dark except for the candle carried by my companion, Durnford, and a gleam of light from a lamp on the staircase beyond. It was in this semi-darkness I saw the shape of her whose death we compassed, in that room yonder, forty years ago!"
He pointed to the door opening into Topsparkle's bedchamber.
"My good Fétis, you were drunk," said his master, without moving a muscle. "His lordship had plied you with wine till your highly imaginative mind was on the alert for phantoms. An effect of light and shade in a dusky room, a white curtain perchance, an optical delusion of some kind. I should have given you credit for more sense and less superstition."
"I tell you 'twas she, Margharita Vincenti. It was her face, sad, reproachful, as it has looked upon me many a time in this house. It was her figure, her attitude, standing there before me in the light of Mr. Durnford's uplifted candle, with all the reality of life."
"And yet in a trice the vision vanished, melted before your eyes?"
"Indeed I know not, sir, for terror overcame my senses, and I swooned."
"My good Fétis, you are in a very bad state of health. You need to be monstrously careful of yourself. These signs and wonders of yours presage lunacy. Give me the hand-mirror. No, your eyebrows are not so successful as usual. There is a gouty line in the arch of the left, and you have given me a scintilla too much rouge. Pray tone down that rosy-apple appearance to a more delicate peach bloom. I think you are falling off in the composition of your red. There is a purple tinge that is too conspicuously artificial. You are a chemist, and should know more of the amalgamation of colours. You should try to imitate nature, my good Fétis. And you tell me you saw my poor Margharita's ghost, and that 'twas Mr. Durnford who held the candle that lighted the vision?"
"It was just as I have told you."
"To be sure. And pray do you happen to remember a certain young lady, an heiress, who came to the Abbey last winter, and who was the living image of my poor Margharita – whom you must remember I indulged and treated with all possible kindness so long as she was faithful to me – and on whose account you might therefore spare me your reproaches."
"I cannot forget my crime, nor who prompted it."
"Plague take you, Fétis, why use hard words? 'Twas but a sleeping draught made a thought too powerful, so that the sleep became eternal. 'Twas euthanasia. Had that girl lived her fate would have been an evil one. She was on the downward slope when death stopped her. She had ceased to care for me, and was passionately in love with Churchill. Do you suppose he would have remained true to her when the vanity of conquest was over and her monotony of sweetness began to pall? Deserted by him, she would have fallen a prey to some coarser profligate, and then the side boxes, and the hospital or Bridewell. Faithless to me, there was nothing but death that could save her."
"You might have made her your wife."
"Because I found her false and fickle as a mistress! A pretty reason, quotha."
"To be made an honest woman would have steadied her; you might have given her the company of her child; that is ever a mother's safeguard."
"Pollute my house with the presence of a squalling baby! No, Fétis, endurance has limits. Pshaw! let us not harp upon this folly. Do you remember Mrs. Bosworth?"
"Yes; I saw her only at a distance. The likeness was certainly startling."
"And you did not know that the lady is now Mr. Durnford's wife? He stole her from her father's house t'other day, and Parson Keith married them."
"No; I had not heard that."
"And therefore could not guess that the ghost you saw in the dark room was no less a personage than Durnford's young wife, who by a freak of nature happens to be the living image of my dead mistress?"
"By heaven, it might have been so! I never guessed – I never thought – " faltered Fétis.
"Of course not. You have lost your head, my friend, since you took to cards and strong waters. Had you been content to drink like a gentleman, these fancies would never have addled your brains. I hope you betrayed yourself no more than by your swooning fit in Lavendale's presence. You held your tongue, I trust, when your senses returned?"
"I know not," answered Fétis, with an embarrassed air. "I left the house like a sleepwalker, scarce conscious of my own actions; nor do I know how I reached my own chamber."
"You are a sad fool, my dear Fétis, and, what is more, you are a dangerous fool," said Topsparkle, in his gentlest voice, and with a faint sigh. "The hand-glass again, please. Yes, that is better: the eyebrows have more delicacy than your first attempt. I want to appear at my best to-night. A man who has a beautiful wife should not look a scarecrow. You have a remarkable talent for touching up a face; a gift, Fétis, a gift. 'Tis an art that can be no more learnt than oratory or poetry. A man must be born with it. I am very sorry for you, my good Louis, sorry that tongue of yours is no more to be trusted. There, that will do. My valet can help me on with my wig. You are looking ill and tired. Get home as fast as you can."
"Indeed, sir, I am far from well."
"I can see it, my poor friend. Good-day to you. Tell my servant to bring me a dish of tea as you go out."
Fétis bowed and retired, gave his master's message to the footman sitting half asleep in the ante-room, and went out of the house.
He had not left the Square before he was stopped by two shabbily-clad men, one of whom tapped him on the shoulder.
"You are my prisoner, Mr. Fétis."
"Prisoner, fellow! you are joking."
"No, sir; this will show you there is no joke in the matter;" and the man produced a paper which Mr. Fétis read with a troubled brow.
"This can be very easily settled," he said after a pause; "'tis but a bagatelle. I had forgotten that Mr. Bevis had sued me. The account is such a paltry one, and I have put thousands into Bevis's pockets. It is but fifty pounds. If you will accompany me to yonder house on the other side of the Square, Mr. Topsparkle will oblige me with the cash."
"Can't do no such thing, your honour," growled the bailiff, in a voice thickened by hard living and strong drink. "My orders are to take you straight to the sponging-house. You can communicate with your friends when you're there."
"But the house is within a few paces, and I tell you I can get the money!"
"The law's the law, and it mustn't be tampered with," said the man, "and duty's duty, and it's mine to see you safe inside the lock. Call a coach, Jerry; there's a stand in Greek Street," and so, with his arm held in the dirty grasp of a bailiff, Mr. Fétis was marched off to a coach.
In that trouble of mind which had been growing on him of late he had indeed almost forgotten that judgment had been pronounced against him at the suit of Messrs. Bevis, wine merchants, of the Strand, whose account, though he made so light of it, was one of long standing. Messrs. Bevis had filled and refilled Mr. Topsparkle's cellars since his re-establishment in London, and Fétis had been the agent and intermediary in all purchases of wine, choosing, tasting, approving, and had been courted and fawned upon by the Messrs. Bevis and their clerks. And now on account of a trumpery fifty-odd pounds for goods supplied to himself, he was to be locked up in gaol! He was astounded at the ingratitude of these wretches.
