There had been a time when Arthur would have decided this question in the negative; but he was wiser now, and knew that in London people feast on the very brink of commercial death, that they gather their friends and give elegant _déjeûners_, and eat with an appetite and enjoy their repast, even though they know next hour Jack Ketch is coming to arrange the noose and hang them by the neck till all chance of return to respectable West end society is past for ever. To his country imagination, it was still a fearful and a wonderful thing to see people spending, with poverty stalking gauntly at the heels of pleasure; but he had acquired sufficient knowledge of town to be at the same time aware three or four hundred pounds seem a mere bagatelle to a man whose liabilities amount to hundreds of thousands. With affairs going all cross in the City, Mrs. Raidsford, triumphant in satins and jewellery, was “at home” in Huntingdon Place. If another chance were never to offer itself of airing her bad grammar, and exhibiting her wonderful taste in dress to her rich and grand acquaintances, that was all the more reason why she should avail herself of this opportunity, while opportunity lasted. Only stupid, unsophisticated people like the Dudleys thought of retrenchment before the final crash; besides, Mrs. Raidsford meant to marry her daughters off, if she could, and all the world knows the best way to secure a desirable husband is to ask a few hundred people to meet and make themselves as uncomfortable as circumstances and the construction of modern London houses will permit. All this and much more to the same effect Arthur Dudley had abundant leisure for considering before the door opened and Mr. Raidsford appeared. He made some hurried apology for his delay, and then throwing himself into a chair opposite Arthur, anxiously demanded his business. Amongst his guests in the drawing-rooms, on the staircase, in the hall, he had been a prosperous-looking, smiling gentleman; now he flung the mask off, and allowed the lines of care to appear in his face, a tone of despairing trouble to lurk in his voice. “Don’t be afraid, man,” he said, almost brusquely. “Lord Kemms told me your business concerned me; out with it; I am not a child—I can face the worst—I have seen it coming this many a day.” “Mr. Raidsford,” began Arthur, “what you have suffered from has been a loss of credit, I understand; a pressure, as you yourself told me, for money.” “Yes,” was the reply; “and when this pressure commenced, I believed my credit to be as good as that of any man in England; I believed it to be so good, in fact, that I paid no attention to the pressure for a considerable period—not, in fact, until it became almost like a run on a bank.” “And to what cause did you attribute that run?” inquired Arthur.