Heaven knows! perhaps the fair creatures were weary of waging an unprofitable war with their servants—those real chiefs of London households; perhaps the entreaties—very humble and servile—of Markby, round the corner, carried due weight with the so-called mistresses of town mansions and suburban villas; perhaps the “cash down” principles of the Company were too strict to suit the laxer views of people who had been accustomed to the greater freedom of a “six months’ run;” perhaps—but why go on multiplying suppositions, when the actual result is all which need be stated?—customers fell off in abundance; week after week a smaller quantity of bread required to be baked, a more limited supply of flour was demanded; till at length the directors began to look gloomily in each other’s faces, and inquire “what business was coming to.” The shares also decreased in value, and by the time another half year came round, things had begun to look, as Mr. Black declared, “very blue.” As for Arthur Dudley, he had reluctantly renewed those bills, for which Mr. Black was, he considered, responsible, once again, and paid off the others out of the money raised on Berrie Down. He did not, so he conceived, owe a sixpence in the world, and he had the property in Lincoln’s Inn, his furniture and his salary, but still things were “looking blue” with him also. When he came to cast up his year’s expenditure, he discovered a thousand pounds would nothing like see him through it. He was an honest man, as I have said before, but he had gone on spending—spending—without a thought of how all this spending was to be provided for, until the gradual depreciation of the Protector’s shares roused him from his dream of security, and compelled him to look his position in the face. Then he realised to himself for the first time, how much easier it is to be economical in the country than in London; how much less chance there is of a person living beyond his income amidst green fields than amongst bricks and mortar. At Berrie Down, he could have accounted for every sixpence; in town, all he could clearly determine was that the money had gone—where it was gone he might have defied a conjuror accurately to tell. Cabs here; expenses there; a luncheon with so-and-so, a dinner with some one else; a picnic at Bushey; Heather’s visit to Hastings; fees to Dr. Chickton. It was but a guinea now, and ten pounds again, and half a sovereign on such a date; and yet, these items mounted up. There are only ten hundred single pounds in a thousand a year, and a five-pound note Arthur knew had often not covered his daily expenditure.