"It is a power I never heard of before, sir. We have a parson, down our way, who tells us every Sunday the world's coming to an end. I think it must be. I know it's getting too clever for me to understand. If a man has the misfortune (perhaps after years of struggling that nobody knows anything about but himself) to break up at last, he goes into the country's _Gazette_ in a straightforward manner, and the public read it over their breakfast-tables, and there's nothing underhand about it. But as to this other thing--if I comprehend the matter rightly--Blair did not as much as know of its existence, or that his name was going into it." "I am sure he did not; or I, either," said Mr. Lockett. "I should like its meaning explained, then," cried the Squire, getting hotter and angrier. "Is it a fair, upright, honest thing; or is it a sort of Spanish Inquisition?" "I cannot tell you," answered the parson, as they both stood still. "Mr. Blair was informed by the father of one of his pupils that he believed the sheet was first of all set up as a speculation, and was found to answer so well that it became quite an institution. I do not know whether this is true." "I have heard of an institution for idiots, but I never heard of one for selling up men's chairs and tables," stormed the Squire. "No, sir, and I don't believe it now. I might take up my standing to-morrow on the top of the Monument, and say to the public, 'Here I am, and I'll ferret out what I can about you, and whisper it to one another of you;' and so bring a serpent's trail on the unsuspecting heads, and altogether play Old Gooseberry with the crowds below me. Do you suppose, sir, the Lord Chancellor would wink his eye at me, stuck aloft there at my work, and would tolerate such a spectacle?" "I fear the Lord Chancellor has not much to do with it," said Mr. Lockett, smiling at the Squire's random logic. "Then suppose we say good men--public opinion--commercial justice and honour? Come!" He shook the frail railings, on which his hand was resting, until they nearly came to grief. Mr. Lockett related the particulars of the transaction from the beginning; the original debt, which Blair was suddenly called upon to pay off, and the contraction of the one to Gavity. He said that he himself had had as much to do with it as Blair, in the capacity of friend and adviser, and felt almost as though he were responsible for the turn affairs had taken; which had caused him scarcely to enjoy an easy moment since. The Squire began to abuse Gavity, but Mr. Lockett said the man did not appear to have had any ill intention. As to his having sold off the goods--if he had not sold them, the landlord would have done so. "And what's Blair doing now?" asked Mr. Todhetley. "Battling with illness for his life," said the clergyman. "I have just been praying with him." The Squire retreated towards the lamp-post, as if some one had given him a blow. Mr. Lockett explained further.