His banker, in whose hands he had placed the greater part of his property, had certainly stopped payment; but it could not yet be ascertained when his affairs would be put into a train for settlement, nor was it likely that one so little acquainted with the City as Mr Primrose should be able to form any idea of the dividend which might be paid. He certainly had heard it said that no greater dividend would be forthcoming, than one shilling in the pound. But people in the City sometimes tells lies not knowing them to be lies, and sometimes even do they go so far as to tell lies knowing them to be so. Mr Primrose was a very hasty man, catching up whatever he heard, and taking it for granted that all he heard was true. He never thought of enquiring what was the political party to which his banker belonged, nor did he know to what party those persons attached themselves who told him the melancholy story of that banker's inability to pay more than one shilling in the pound. As for Mr Primrose himself, he, poor man, knew nothing about party; he was not aware that England contained two classes of men, one of which is all that is good, and the other all that is bad. He simply knew that the banker had stopped payment, and that two very respectable-looking gentlemen had declared it as their opinion that there would not be a dividend of more than one shilling in the pound. That story he believed, and on that presumption was proceeding. His daughter of course could know nothing about the matter; and as for the Right Honorable Lord Spoonbill, he was such a superfine sort of a gentleman that he hardly knew that there was such a place as the City; and if he had ever heard of such an animal as a City Alderman, he took it for some such a creature as the Bonassus. Now this melancholy intelligence, which Mr Primrose had brought with him from the City, put a stop of course to those employments in which he would otherwise have been engaged. He was preparing to look out for some residence, either in town or country; and for that purpose he had every morning read with great attention all the advertisements of desirable residences to be sold or let. It was not very pleasant to turn from these thoughts to study painfully the means of again acquiring a maintenance.