ink from one end of London to the other. If
he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should lose them.
And all the time, as we were pitching it in red hot, we were keeping the
women off him as best we could for they were as wild as harpies. I never
saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle,
with a kind of black sneering coolness--frightened too, I could see
that--but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan. `If you choose to
make capital out of this accident,' said he, `I am naturally helpless.
No gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene,' says he. `Name your figure.'
Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds for the child's family; he
would have clearly liked to stick out; but there was something about the
lot of us that meant mischief, and at last he struck. The next thing was
to get the money; and where do you think he carried us but to that place
with the door?--whipped out a key, went in, and presently came back
with the matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on
Coutts's, drawn payable to bearer and signed with a name that I can't
mention, though it's one of the points of my story, but it was a name at
least very well known and often printed. The figure was stiff; but the
signature was good for more than that if it was only genuine. I took the
liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that the whole business looked
apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life, walk into a cellar
door at four in the morning and come out with another man's cheque for
close upon a hundred pounds. But he was quite easy and sneering. `Set
your mind at rest,' says he, `I will stay with you till the banks open
and cash the cheque myself.' So we all set off, the doctor, and the
child's father, and our friend and myself, and passed the rest of the
night in my chambers; and next day, when we had breakfasted, went in
a body to the bank. I gave in the cheque myself, and said I had every
reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of it. The cheque was
genuine."

"Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson.

"I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield. "Yes, it's a bad story. For
my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really damnable
man; and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the
proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your
fellows who do what they call good. Black mail I suppose; an honest man
paying through the nose for some of the ca