Bott. "Still, you know Palliser is
Chancellor of the Exchequer at this moment. What a lucky fellow you
are to have such a chance come to you directly you get in. As soon as
he takes his seat down there, of course we shall go up behind him."

"We shall have another election in a month's time," said George. "I'm
safe enough," said Bott. "It never hurts a man at elections to be
closely connected with the Government."

George Vavasor was in the City by times the next morning, but he
found that the City did not look with favourable eyes on his four
bills. The City took them up, first horizontally, and then, with
a twist of its hand, perpendicularly, and looked at them with
distrustful eyes. The City repeated the name, Alice Vavasor, as
though it were not esteemed a good name on Change. The City suggested
that as the time was so short, the holder of the bills would be wise
to hold them till he could collect the amount. It was very clear that
the City suspected something wrong in the transaction. The City, by
one of its mouths, asserted plainly that ladies' bills never meant
business. George Vavasor cursed the City, and made his calculation
about murdering it. Might not a river of strychnine be turned on
round the Exchange about luncheon time? Three of the bills he left
at last with his own bankers for collection, and retained the fourth
in his breast-pocket, intending on the morrow to descend with it
into those lower depths of the money market which he had not as yet
visited. Again, on the next day, he went to work and succeeded to
some extent. Among those lower depths he found a capitalist who was
willing to advance him two hundred pounds, keeping that fourth bill
in his possession as security. The capitalist was to have forty
pounds for the transaction, and George cursed him as he took his
cheque. George Vavasor knew quite enough of the commercial world to
enable him to understand that a man must be in a very bad condition
when he consents to pay forty pounds for the use of two hundred for
fourteen days. He cursed the City. He cursed the House of Commons. He
cursed his cousin Alice and his sister Kate. He cursed the memory of
his grandfather. And he cursed himself.

Mr Levy had hardly left the house in Queen Anne Street, before
Alice had told her father what she had done. "The money must be
forthcoming," said Alice. To this her father made no immediate reply,
but turning himself in his chair away from her with a sudden