oom, during which Mark
thought that he might as well go to bed.

"Not that I mind telling you everything," said Sowerby. "I am
infernally hard up for a little ready money just at the present
moment. It may be, and indeed I think it will be, the case that I
shall be ruined in this matter for the want of it."

"Could not Harold Smith give it you?"

"Ha, ha, ha! you don't know Harold Smith. Did you ever hear of his
lending a man a shilling in his life."

"Or Supplehouse?"

"Lord love you! You see me and Supplehouse together here, and he
comes and stays at my house, and all that; but Supplehouse and I are
no friends. Look you here, Mark--I would do more for your little
finger than for his whole hand, including the pen which he holds in
it. Fothergill indeed might--but then I know Fothergill is pressed
himself at the present moment. It is deuced hard, isn't it? I must
give up the whole game if I can't put my hand upon L400 within the
next two days."

"Ask her for it, herself."

"What, the woman I wish to marry! No, Mark, I'm not quite come to
that. I would sooner lose her than that." Mark sat silent, gazing at
the fire and wishing that he was in his own bedroom. He had an idea
that Mr. Sowerby wished him to produce this L400, and he knew also
that he had not L400 in the world, and that if he had he would be
acting very foolishly to give it to Mr. Sowerby. But nevertheless he
felt half fascinated by the man, and half afraid of him.

"Lufton owes it to me to do more than this," continued Mr. Sowerby,
"but then Lufton is not here."

"Why, he has just paid five thousand pounds for you."

"Paid five thousand pounds for me! Indeed he has done no such thing:
not a sixpence of it came into my hands. Believe me, Mark, you don't
know the whole of that yet. Not that I mean to say a word against
Lufton. He is the soul of honour; though so deucedly dilatory in
money matters. He thought he was right all through that affair, but
no man was ever so confoundedly wrong. Why, don't you remember that
that was the very view you took of it yourself?"

"I remember saying that I thought he was mistaken."

"Of course he was mistaken. And dearly the mistake cost me; I had to
make good the money for two or three years. And my property is not
like his--I wish it were."

"Marry Miss Dunstable, and that will set it all right for you."

"Ah! so I would if I had this money. At any rate I would bring it to
the point. Now, I tell you what,