Mr. Wharton was very proper and accurate in his dress. His coat was always black,--even when he went out to hunt, which was not a rare occurrence, he never sported the red jacket. In riding, he would occasionally indulge in leather, elsewhere than from the knee downwards; but the habiliment of the lower man was, upon all ordinary occasions, a pair of dark gray pantaloons. He was now so habited in his study, as he called the room behind that where seven clerks were seated, for the business he was engaged in was one in the ordinary course, though of extraordinary interest to Mr. Wharton. It was, in short, the consummation of plucking a poor bird which had been entrapped long before. Now it was not intended to leave him a feather, and yet Mr. Wharton was inclined to do the thing as decorously as possible. By decorously I do not mean tenderly--such an unnecessary delicacy never entered into Mr. Wharton's head. The decorum that he thought of was merely _the seeming in the world's eyes_, as a great deal of other decorum is, both male and female. He was about to be as hard, as relentless, as iron-hearted as a cannon-ball, but all with infinite professions of kindness and good feeling, and sorrow for the painful necessity, &c. &c. &c., for Mr. Wharton followed Dr. Kitchener's barbarous recipe for devouring oysters, and "tickled his little favourites before he ate them." The lawyer was standing at a table with some papers before him--not too many--for he was not like those bankrupt attorneys of the capital who fill their rooms with brown tin cases, marked in large white letters "House of Lords," he preferred as little show of business as possible. His object now-a-days was not to get practice, but to make money. Practice enough he had; too much for the common weal. A clerk--a sort of private secretary indeed--was sitting at the other end of the table, and the two had discussed one or two less important affairs, affecting a few hundred pounds, when Mr. Wharton at length observed, "I think to-morrow is the last day with Sir John Slingsby, Mr. Pilkington, is it not?" He knew quite well that it was; but, it would seem, he wished to hear his clerk's opinion upon the subject. "Yes, Sir," answered Mr. Pilkington, "I don't see a chance for him." "Nor I either," answered Mr. Wharton; "I am afraid he is quite run out, poor man. The six months' notice of fore-closure was all right, and the interest now amounts to a large sum." "A very large sum indeed, Sir, with the costs," answered Mr. Pilkington; "you don't think, Sir, he'll attempt to revise the costs or haggle about the interest." "He can't, Mr. Pilkington," replied Mr. Wharton, drily, "the costs are all secured by bond and accounts passed, and it was a client of mine who advanced him the money at seven-and-a-half to pay the interest every six months on my mortgage. I had nothing to do with the transaction." Mr. Pilkington smiled, and Mr. Wharton proceeded.