Uncle David! Yes, he might go to him; he might spread out the broad evidences of his ruin before him, and adjure him, by the God of mercy, to save him from the great public disgrace that was now imminent; implore of him to give him any pittance he pleased, to subsist on in exile, and to deal with the estates as he himself thought best. But Uncle David was away, quite out of reach. After his whimsical and inflexible custom, lest business should track him in his holiday, he had left no address with his man of business, who only knew that his first destination was Scotland; none with Grace Maubray, who only knew that, attended by Vivian Darnley, she and Lady May were to meet him in about a fortnight on the Continent, where they were to plan together a little excursion in Switzerland or Italy. Sir Richard quite forgot there was such a meal as breakfast. He ordered his horse to the door, took a furious two hours' ride beyond Brompton, and returned and saw Levi at his office, at his usual hour, eleven o'clock. The Jew was alone. His large lowering eyes were cast on Sir Richard as he entered and approached. "Look, now; listen," says Sir Richard, who looks wofully wild and pale, and as he seats himself never takes his eyes off Mr. Levi. "I don't care very much who knows it--I think I'm totally _ruined_." The Jew knows pretty well all about it, but he stares and gapes hypocritically in the face of his visitor as if he were thunderstruck, and he speaks never a word. I suppose he thought it as well, for the sake of brevity and clearness, to allow his client "to let off the shteam" first, a process which Sir Richard forthwith commenced, with both hands on the table--sometimes clenched, sometimes expanded, sometimes with a thump, by blowing off a cloud of oaths and curses, and incoherent expositions of the wrongs and perversities of fortune. "I don't think I can tell you how much it is. I don't know," says Sir Richard bleakly, in reply to a pertinent question of the Jew's. "There was that rich fellow, what's his name, that makes candles--he's always winning. By Jove, what a thing luck is! He won--I know it is more than two thousand. I gave him I O U's for it. He'd be very glad, of course, to know me, curse him! I don't care, now, who does. And he'd let me owe him twice as much, for as long as I like. I daresay, only too glad--as smooth as one of his own filthy candles. And there were three fellows lending money there. I don't know how much I got--I was stupid. I signed whatever they put before me. Those things can't stand, by heavens; the Chancellor will set them all aside. The confounded villains! What's the Government doing? What's the Government about, I say? Why don't Parliament interfere, to smash those cursed nests of robbers and swindlers? Here I am, utterly robbed--I know I'm _robbed_--and all by that cursed temptation; and--and--and I don't know what cash I got, nor what I have put my name to!"