The old fellow gave me a sharp look, coughed phthisically twice or thrice, and then, with but little superfluous ceremony, asked me what I wanted. "Money," said I. "Oh, ay, always money. Who is to pay it? What's your security?" "My uncle Wilkins," said I. "Very good name, don't doubt," growled the bear; "the banks will take it. Don't do any business of that sort." "Ged, faith, no," said I; "I don't come for money at six per cent., but on the old terms of usury. You know my uncle Wilkins, eh? Only two children--a fortune of eight hundred and seventy thousand dollars." "Bah!" said the bull, "that will do for the girls and boys. Know all about him; one hundred and twenty, and half of it in railroads--good for nothing." "Two hundred and ninety, _bona fide_," said I, "and half of it in bank-stock." "Know all about it," said Mr. Skinner; "but what's that to you? Has a son of his own." "And a daughter," said I, giving him a nod, which brought a Christian look into his face, and, doubtless, a Christian feeling into his hearts. I took advantage of it to inform him that she and I were about to elope, and wanted a thousand dollars to bear our expenses; assuring him also that her father was on the eve of making her a grant of fifty thousand dollars, as soon as which was done, we should be off at a moment's warning. To be brief, I told the old fellow all that was necessary for my purpose, and made so good a story of it, that I have no doubt I should have got something out of him, had not my evil genius suddenly prompted me to refer to his own daughter Alicia, and ask him what he intended to give her, over and above her own twenty thousand? He looked as black as midnight, and asked "who told me she had such a sum?" I saw I had alarmed him, and said I had it of a friend of mine, a very fine fellow, who thought of taking her off his hands, provided he would add twenty more to it. "Want no fine fellows, and no friends of yours," said he, gruffly; "won't give her a cent, and has nothing of her own; all a fool's story--told you so herself--a jade's trick; never told a truth in her life." The old miser's soul was up in arms; the prospect of being called upon in two months' space to render up the girl's portion to a son-in-law, was so much Scotch snuff thrown into his eyes; if it did not blind, it at least distracted him: and the reward I had for conjuring up the vision was my own dismissal, notwithstanding all my arguments to the contrary, with my pockets as empty as when I entered, a rude assurance that he had closed accounts with me, and a highly impertinent request that I would avoid troubling him for the future.