"Alas, no. He told me that unless my wife would guarantee the payment of his bill he should be under the painful necessity of consigning me to the Fleet Prison and the tender mercies of that notorious friend of humanity, Governor Bambridge. The fellow was evidently in earnest, so to make a long story short, poor Belle consented to be responsible for the scoundrel's account, and all went merrily for the next three years, when, after worrying damnably with lawyers' letters, of which I naturally took no notice, he put in an execution, and had to be paid off in a lump sum of 6859_l._ 7_s._ 11-1/2_d._, and poor Belle found her fortune was altogether swamped by this one liability." "How did she take it?" asked his friend. "Like an angel; and I believe she would have been a loving wife to the end, in spite of all my peccadilloes, debts, cards, and women included; but the old Dowager came swooping down like Medea in her chariot, and carried her lost lamb back to the family fold in Golden Square, where they all pig together upon shoulders of mutton and cow-heel, but contrive to keep up a show of gentility in the way of a worn-out coach and a leash of hungry footmen." "Very wonderful are the struggles of polite poverty," said the other; "but it is still more wonderful to me, Bob, how you contrive to keep out of the sponging-house, _criblé de dettes_ though you are." "Ah, that is indeed a miracle," replied Chambers. "I sometimes catch myself wondering at the long-suffering of my creditors. Yet their patience is not altogether unrewarded. I have introduced some very pretty fellows to my old purveyors. There are innocent young gentlemen from the country who would never know where to go for their finery if there wasn't an experienced man of fashion to put them in the right path." "Ay, Bob, we all understand your pleasant ways. When a man loses the ability to spend on his own account, he may still flourish as the source of spending in others. Tradesmen are always civil to Captain Rook if he visits them in company with Squire Pigeon." "'Sdeath, Middleton, d'ye mean to insult me?" cried Chambers, with his hand on his sword. "Nay, Captain, I did but respond in tune with your own ethics, which were never of the strictest." "Faith, you're right, friend! I was never given to riding the high horse of morality. I spent my money like a gentleman, and any wife's money after it, and have earned the right to take things easily." "Till you find yourself in the sponging-house, Bob. That evil day must come. All your creditors will not be equally placable." "Whenever I get into the sponging-house, the odds are I shall be kicked out again for want of funds to make me worth keeping. Your sponging-house, kept by some dirty Jew, and waited on by a drab, is the most expensive hotel in London."