ung 'ooman, greengrocer.--Dash it!

One or another on 'em,' said the turnkey, repudiating beforehand the
refusal of all his suggestions.

'I fear--I hope it is not against the rules--that she will bring the
children.'

'The children?' said the turnkey. 'And the rules? Why, lord set you
up like a corner pin, we've a reg'lar playground o' children here.
Children! Why we swarm with 'em. How many a you got?'

'Two,' said the debtor, lifting his irresolute hand to his lip again,
and turning into the prison.

The turnkey followed him with his eyes. 'And you another,' he observed
to himself, 'which makes three on you. And your wife another, I'll lay
a crown. Which makes four on you. And another coming, I'll lay
half-a-crown. Which'll make five on you. And I'll go another seven and
sixpence to name which is the helplessest, the unborn baby or you!'

He was right in all his particulars. She came next day with a little
boy of three years old, and a little girl of two, and he stood entirely
corroborated.

'Got a room now; haven't you?' the turnkey asked the debtor after a week
or two.

'Yes, I have got a very good room.'

'Any little sticks a coming to furnish it?' said the turnkey.

'I expect a few necessary articles of furniture to be delivered by the
carrier, this afternoon.'

'Missis and little 'uns a coming to keep you company?' asked the
turnkey.

'Why, yes, we think it better that we should not be scattered, even for
a few weeks.'

'Even for a few weeks, OF course,' replied the turnkey. And he followed
him again with his eyes, and nodded his head seven times when he was
gone.

The affairs of this debtor were perplexed by a partnership, of which he
knew no more than that he had invested money in it; by legal matters
of assignment and settlement, conveyance here and conveyance there,
suspicion of unlawful preference of creditors in this direction, and of
mysterious spiriting away of property in that; and as nobody on the face
of the earth could be more incapable of explaining any single item in
the heap of confusion than the debtor himself, nothing comprehensible
could be made of his case. To question him in detail, and endeavour
to reconcile his answers; to closet him with accountants and sharp
practitioners, learned in the wiles of insolvency and bankruptcy; was
only to put the case out at compound interest and incomprehensibility.
The irresolute fingers fluttered more and more ineffectually about the
tr