Grabble added, "Perhaps it would be more satisfactory to this gentleman if we showed him our account with the house he inquires about. Here, Clark, let me have the ledger." The ledger was brought. It showed a large amount as due from Voleur and Co. to Downey and Co. "I see," said Brown, "that you have confidence in them. You'll, however, excuse my being a little particular. I am a poorer man than you are, and although I am anxious to do business, I must be careful not to make bad debts." "What goods are they you have to sell?" inquired Grabble. "Alpacas," said Brown. "Ah, yes; they are wanted in Paris just now. Voleur's might sell an immense lot of those, I should think. It's a good opening for you." "What credit do they want?" asked Downey. "Thirty days," said Brown. "It's as safe as the Bank. You are sure to get your money at the end of the month. I know both Voleur and Enlever. They are young men belonging to first-class families, and as sound as Copestakes or Morleys." Brown thanked Downey and Grabble, and went on his way to his own little warehouse, rejoicing in the confident belief that he had done a good day's work--that he had netted a ten-pound note that morning. The goods were sent in with all convenient speed by Brown to Voleur and Enlever. By their agent the alpacas were not forwarded to Paris,--perhaps because they were needed in the home market. The Paris house had, as Downey and Grabble well knew, a means of disposing of all sorts of textile, or even fictile products, much nearer to the City branch of their operations than the French capital. There was, in the neighbourhood of the London Rialto, "a house" kept by two kind-hearted members of one of the tribes of Israel, in which any conceivable quantity of goods that any other firm or house could buy on credit might be taken care of; and these benevolent Hebrews would at all times not only warehouse the aforesaid goods, but they would also oblige trading Gentiles by advances (of course for a consideration, under the name of interest) up to a certain proportion of the value of these goods. Now, reader, don't call this process by an ugly name. If you have read the former stories in my volume, you will be aware that this mode of disposing of goods is not called pawning. That is an obnoxious word--never breathed among City men, or allowed to taint the air between Temple Bar and Aldgate. This mode of raising cash, and getting off commodities, is called hypothecating. Is it not a nice phrase? The process is undoubtedly sanctified by the title.