"Upon us, you mean." Dr. Vinsen shifted uneasily upon his seat. "I will find a way, and you shall share the risk." He smiled as he added, "I will insure your safety for a small premium, so we will not waste time in recrimination. Come to the 'other matters' you have referred to, and of which I am as yet in ignorance." "Not quite in ignorance, my friend. Surely I have prepared you, surely I have been patient. I decline to be placed in a false light." He took out a pocketbook and laid it on the table, guarding it with his hand. "I have a conscience; I must justify myself even in your eyes." "Is it worth while to make the attempt?" "I think so; I really think so. I must lay my head upon my pillow with my mind at ease--my mind at ease. You, with your lofty notions and your wild search for the unattainable, you with your spectres and visions, know little of the sufferings of a sensitive spirit such as mine." "Faugh! Is _this_ worth while?" "You have your ways, I have mine," said Dr. Vinsen, with a sly smile. "I must trouble you to listen while I go over the ground." "So be it. And if my suspicions are correct--and they generally are--I may trouble _you_ to listen while _I_ go over the ground." "It will be a pleasure. I think it is three years since you and I became acquainted. Correct me if I am wrong." "It is immaterial. Say three years--or thirty." "No, my friend; let us be exact. This is an affair of figures. It is three years since you wrote to me in acknowledgment of a circular you received from me. I had money to lend, you required a loan. I advanced you five hundred pounds." "Four." "Five, my friend, five. The odd hundred was deducted as payment of interest in advance." "Part payment." "You have an excellent memory. I need not go into the details. In the course of a few months you required more money and I advanced it to you." "Spare me the details of each transaction. Come to the point." "I will. Up to the present day you have had from me, in various sums, at various times, a total of three thousand pounds----" "In actual money, not half that." "Which, with interest added," continued Dr. Vinsen, alias Ezra Lynn, not troubling himself to argue the point, "amounts now to a trifle over five thousand pounds. Will you oblige me by looking over these figures and verifying them?" "No, I will take your word that they are correct, according to your reckoning."