, overcome by the man's faith; "you
believe me when I tell you that one I have known from childhood refused
to recognize me to-day?"

He raised me in his arms as tenderly as a woman might.

"And the whole world denied you, lad, I would not. I believe you--" and
he repeated it again and again, unable to get farther.

And if his words brought tears to my eyes, my strength came with them.

"Then I care not," I replied; "I only to live to reward you."

"Mr. Manners shall answer for it to me!" cried John Paul again, and made
a pace toward the door.

"Not so fast, not so fast, captain, or admiral, or whatever you are,"
said the bailiff, stepping in his way, for he was used to such scenes;
"as God reigns, the owners of all these fierce titles be fire-eaters,
who would spit you if you spilt snuff upon 'em. Come, come, gentlemen,
your swords, and we shall see the sights o' London."

This was the signal for another uproar, the tailor shrieking that John
Paul must take off the suit, and Banks the livery; asking the man in the
corner by the sea-chests (who proved to be the landlord) who was to pay
him for his work and his lost cloth. And the landlord shook his fist
at us and shouted back, who was to pay him his four pounds odd, which
included two ten-shilling dinners and a flask of his best wine? The
other tradesmen seized what was theirs and made off with remarks
appropriate to the occasion. And when John Paul and my man were divested
of their plumes, we were marched downstairs and out through a jeering
line of people to a hackney coach.

"Now, sirs, whereaway?" said the bailiff when we were got in beside one
of his men, and burning with the shame of it; "to the prison? Or I has a
very pleasant hotel for gentlemen in Castle Yard."

The frightful stories my dear grandfather had told me of the Fleet came
flooding into my head, and I shuddered and turned sick. I glanced at
John Paul.

"A guinea will not go far in a sponging-house," said he, and the
bailiff's man laughed.

The bailiff gave a direction we did not hear, and we drove off. He
proved a bluff fellow with a bloat yet not unkindly humour, and despite
his calling seemed to have something that was human in him. He
passed many a joke on that pitiful journey in an attempt to break our
despondency, urging us not to be downcast, and reminding us that the
last gentleman he had taken from Pall Mall was in over a thousand
pounds, and that our amount was a bagatelle. And w