a lady of family, who wanted a
bill "done" for one hundred pounds. So ordinary a transaction merely
needed a memorandum in my diary, "Tuesday, 3 P.M.; F.F., 100_l._ Bill."
The hour came and passed; but no Frank, which was strange--because every
one must have observed, that, however dilatory people are in paying,
they are wonderfully punctual when they expect to receive money.

At five o'clock, in rushed my Jackall. His story, disentangled from
oaths and ejaculations, amounted to this:--In answer to one of the
advertisements he occasionally addresses "To the Embarrassed," in the
columns of the "Times," he received a note from a lady, who said she was
anxious to get a "bill done"--the acceptance of a well-known man of rank
and fashion. A correspondence was opened and an appointment made. At the
hour fixed, neatly shaved, brushed, gloved, booted,--the revival, in
short, of that high-bred Frank Fisherton, who was so famous

"In his hot youth, when Crockford's was the thing,"

glowing with only one glass of brandy "just to steady his nerves," he
met the lady at a West-end pastry-cook's.

After a few words (for all the material questions had been settled by
correspondence) she stepped into her brougham, and invited Frank to take
a seat beside her. Elated with a compliment of late years so rare, he
commenced planning the orgies which were to reward him for weeks of
enforced fasting, when the coachman, reverentially touching his hat,
looked down from his seat for orders.

"To ninety-nine, George street, St. James," cried Fisherton, in his
loudest tones.

In an instant, the young lady's pale face changed to scarlet, and then
to ghastly green. In a whisper, rising to a scream, she exclaimed, "Good
heavens! you do not mean to _that_ man's house" (meaning me). "Indeed, I
cannot go to him, on any account; he is a most horrid man, I am told,
and charges most extravagantly."

"Madam," answered Frank, in great perturbation, "I beg your pardon, but
you have been grossly misinformed. I have known that excellent man these
twenty years, and have paid him hundreds on hundreds; but never so much
by ten per cent, as you offered me for discounting your bill."

"Sir, I cannot have any thing to do with your friend." Then, violently
pulling the check-string, "Stop" she gasped; "and _will you_ have the
goodness to get out?"

"And so I got out," continued Fisherton, "and lost my time; and the
heavy investment I made in getting myself