'ye hear, as you're a small talker, don't let the little
you say be so cursed crabbed; and if a few kind words of comfort should
find their way from your heart to your tongue, don't shut your ugly
mouth, and keep them within your teeth. You may tell her that if she can
find any body to stand up for her husband, I shan't be over nice about
the sufficiency of the bail. Get you gone.

_Ponder_ I shall. Let me see! farmer Flail--Mrs. Muddle, his
neighbour--Shuttle's wife--and a whole string of messages and
memorandums--here's business enough to bother the brains of any
ordinary man! You are pleased to say, sir, that I am too much addicted
to thinking--I think _not_. [_Exit Ponder._

_O'Ded._ By my soul, if an attorney wasn't sometimes a bit of a rogue,
he'd never be able to earn an honest livelihood. Oh Mr. O'Dedimus! why
have you so little when your heart could distribute so much!

Sir Rowland, _without_.

_Sir Row._ Mr. O'Dedimus--within there!

_O'Ded._ Yes, I'm within there.

_Enter_ sir Rowland.

_Sir Row._ Where are these papers? I thought the law's delay was only
felt by those who could not pay for its expedition.

_O'Ded._ The law, sir Rowland, is a good horse, and his pace is slow and
sure; but he goes no faster because you goad him with a golden spur; but
every thing is prepared, sir; and now, sir Rowland, I have an ugly sort
of an awkward affair to mention to you.

_Sir Row._ Does it concern _me_?

_O'Ded._ You know, sir Rowland, at the death of my worthy friend, the
late lord Austencourt, you were left sole executor and guardian to his
son, the present lord, then an infant of three years of age.

_Sir Row._ What does this lead to? (_starting_)

_O'Ded._ With a disinterested view to benefit the estate of the minor,
who came of age the other day, you some time ago embarked a capital of
14,000l. in a great undertaking.

_Sir Row._ Proceed.

_O'Ded._ I have this morning received a letter from the agent, stating
the whole concern to have failed, the partners to be bankrupts, and the
property consigned to assignees not to promise, as a final dividend,
more than one shilling in the pound. This letter will explain the rest.

_Sir Row._ How! I was not prepared for this--What's to be done?

_O'Ded._ When one loses a sum of money that isn't one's own, there's but
one thing to be done.

_Sir Row._ And what is that?

_O'Ded._ To pay it back again.

_Sir Row._ You know that to be impossible, ut