The baronet was standing before Levi, and at these words from that dirty little oracle, a terrible chill stole up from his feet to the crown of his head. Like a frozen man he stood there, and the Jew saw that his very lips were white. Sir Richard feels, for the first time, actually, that he is ruined. The young man tries to speak, twice. The big eyes of the Jew are staring up at the contortion. Sir Richard can see nothing but those two big fiery eyes; he turns quickly away and walks to the end of the room. "There's just one fiddle-string left to play on," muses the Jew. "For God's sake!" exclaims Sir Richard, turning about, in a voice you would not have known, and for fully a minute the room was so silent you could scarcely have believed that two men were breathing in it. "Shir Richard, will you be so good as to come nearer a bit? There, that'sh the cheeshe. I brought thish 'ere thing." It is a square parchment with a good deal of printed matter, and blanks, written in, and a law stamp fixed with an awful regularity, at the corner. "Casht your eye over it," says Levi, coaxingly, as he pushes it over the table to the young gentleman, who is sitting now at the other side. The young man looks at it, reads it, but just then, if it had been a page of "Robinson Crusoe," he could not have understood it. "I'm not quite myself, I can't follow it; too much to think of. What is it?" "A bond and warrant to confess judgment." "What is it for?" "Ten thoushand poundsh." "Sign it, shall I? Can you do anything with it?" "Don't raishe your voishe, but lishten. Your friend"--and at the phrase Mr. Levi winked mysteriously--"has enough to do it twishe over; and upon my shoul, I'll shwear on the book, azh I hope to be shaved, it will never shee the light; he'll never raishe a pig on it, sho' 'elp me, nor let it out of hish 'ands, till he givesh it back to you. He can't ma-ake no ushe of it; I knowshe him well, and he'll pay you the ten thoushand to-morrow morning, and he wantsh to shake handsh with you, and make himself known to you, and talk a bit." "But--but my signature wouldn't satisfy him," began Sir Richard bewildered. "Oh! _no_--no, no?" murmured Mr. Levi, fiddling with the corner of the bank's reminder which lay on the table. "Mr. Longcluse won't sign it," said Sir Richard. Mr. Levi threw himself back in his chair, and looked with a roguish expression still upon the table, and gave the corner of the note a little fillip. "Well," said Levi, after both had been some time silent, "it ain't much, only to write his name on the penshil line, _there_, you see, and _there_--he shouldn't make no bonesh about it. Why, it's done every day. Do you think I'd help in a thing of the short if there was any danger? The Sheneral's come to town, is he? What are you afraid of? Don't you be a shild--ba-ah!"