A total of £202 18s. 6d. Practically he might say that £200 would clear everything. Yet was £50 enough to allow for those miscellaneous accounts? Here for instance was a bill of £11 for boots and another of £14 for hats apparently, though how the deuce he could have spent all that on hats he did not know. It would be wiser to say that £250 was required to free himself from debt. Guy read through the tradesmen's letters and detected an universal impatience, for they all reminded him that not merely for fifteen months had they received nothing on account of large outstanding bills, but also they made it clear that behind reiterated demands and politeness strained to breaking-point stood darkly the law. That brute Ambrose, to whom after all he only owed £4 7s., was the most threatening. In fact he would obviously have to pay the ruffian in full. That left only £15 13s. for current expenses to Lady Day, or rather £14 12s., for by the way Worrall's guinea had been left out of the reckoning. Guy wondered if he ought to get rid of Miss Peasey and manage for himself in future. Yet the housekeeper probably earned her wages by what she saved him, and if he relied on a woman who 'came in' every morning, that meant feeding a family. It would be better to sell a few books. He might raise £50 that way. Ten pounds to both Lampard and Clary, and six fivers among the rest would postpone any violent pressure for a while. Guy at once began to choose the books with which he could most easily part. It was difficult to put aside as many as might be expected to raise £50, for his collection did not contain rarities, and it would be a sheer quantity of volumes, the extraction of which would horribly deplete his shelves, upon which he must rely.