Presently a clerk came towards me and said with a lowering face, "Who did you want to see?" I told him, the principal; upon which he disappeared into an inner office. When he returned, he said, "The Governor'll see you directly." Presently I was called in, and a very kindly old gentleman demanded my business. I told him I was a debtor upon whom his firm had orders to distrain, and that I had come up to make an offer to buy in my small stock of furniture, so small that it was hardly worth his while to remove. "Ah," he said, "you are Mr Bullen of Lordship Lane, I believe," consulting a book at his side. I answered that I was. "Now then," he went on, "what are you prepared to bid for this furniture of yours?" "Five pounds," I replied as calmly as I could, though to tell the truth my heart was thumping with the excitement of the crisis. "Five pounds," he repeated scornfully, "for a houseful of furniture! the thing's absurd. I never heard the like. Indeed you'll have to offer a good deal more than that." Very earnestly I answered him that it was quite impossible that I should do so. I had reached the limit, and that only by what I felt to be a miracle. Then he called the man whom I had received my instructions from, and consulted him in a low voice. The upshot of their conversation was that he turned to me and said, "My man here thinks your offer isn't out of the way, and so I'll accept it, but you must pay our fee." Again I assured him of my impecuniosity, but he cut me short by saying, "All right, you give me a promissory note to pay a guinea for my fee within a month, and the bargain's closed. But remember, if you try to chisel me, you'll be very sorry for it. My clerk will make out the receipt and note. He won't keep you waiting long." So I paid the £5 and signed the promissory note. When I was leaving the office the principal said as if through an afterthought, "Look here, we've done with you--as far as we are concerned, your goods are free. But your landlord can distrain, if you let him, at any time between sunrise and sunset. So if I was you I'd shift those goods to another house--then they'll be safe and not before. Good morning."