riend Granby as part payment of my debt to him,
the probability is that he would laugh in my face and invite me to
dinner in order that we might celebrate the event over a bottle of very
old port. Don't you think so?"

Aileen laughed, and said that she did think so.

"Well, then," continued her father, "what, in these circumstances, says
common sense?"

Aileen's mouth became grave again, and her eyes very earnest as she said
quickly--

"Pay off the green-grocer!"

Mr Hazlit nodded approval. "You are right. Mr Timms' account amounts
to twenty pounds. To offer twenty pounds to Mr Granby--to whom I owe
some eight thousand, more or less--would be a poor practical joke. To
give it to Mr Timms will evidently be the saving of his business at a
time when it appears to have reached a crisis. Put on your bonnet and
shawl, dear, and we will go about this matter without delay."

Aileen was one of those girls who possessed the rare and delectable
capacity to "throw on" her bonnet and shawl. One glance in the mirror
sufficed to convince her that these articles, although thrown on, had
fallen into their appropriate places neatly. It could scarcely have
been otherwise. Her bonnet and shawl took kindly to her, like all other
things in nature--animate and otherwise. She reappeared before her
sedate father had quite finished drawing on his gloves.

Mr John Timms dwelt in a back lane which wriggled out of a back street
as if it were anxious to find something still further back into which to
back itself. He had been in better circumstances and in a better part
of the town when Mr Hazlit had employed him. At the time of the rich
merchant's failure, the house of Timms had been in a shaky condition.
That failure was the removal of its last prop; it fell, and Timms
retired, as we have seen, into the commercial background. Here,
however, he did not find relief. Being a trustful man he was cheated
until he became untrustful. His wife became ill owing to bad air and
low diet. His six children became unavoidably neglected and riotous,
and his business, started on the wreck of the old one, again came to the
brink of failure. It was in these circumstances that he sat down, under
the impulse of a fit of desperation, and penned the celebrated letter to
his old customer.

When Mr Hazlit and his daughter had, with great difficulty, discovered
Mr Timms' residence and approached the door, they were checked on the
threshold by the