My best friend--a man whom I had wrested from the extremity of poverty and disgrace, and my only relative--a youth whom I had adopted and reared as my son, who was my heir at law, and the living partner, as I may say, in all my possessions--had leagued together feloniously to deprive me of what I never denied them the privilege to share,--to rob, to fleece, to reduce me to beggary. Words cannot paint my grief. I crept away from the scene of confusion, ashamed of my manhood, ashamed even of my philanthropy. I reached the door of my house; it was just dusk; a poor man standing at the door implored my charity for a miserable creature, as he called himself. "Go to the devil!" said I. "You are Zachariah Longstraw?" said another man, tapping me on the shoulder. "I am," said I, supposing he was a beggar like the other; "and you may go to the devil too." "Very much obliged to you," said the man; "but you're my prisoner; and so come along, if you please." And with that he took me by the arm, and began to march me down the street. 13. CHAPTER XIII. THE DÉNOUEMENT OF THE DRAMA. Why I was arrested, and at whose instance, I knew not; I was too downcast and spirit-broken to inquire. I had, doubtless, divers small debts due to persons with whom I was accustomed to deal; and it seemed to me natural enough, as all men were ungrateful rascals, that all such persons, now that I was known to be penniless, should fall upon me without shame or mercy, demanding their dues. I say I thought such a consummation was natural enough, and I asked no questions of my captor. I let my head drop upon my bosom, and, without resisting or remonstrating, and looking neither to the right nor the left, suffered him to conduct me whither he would. Our progress was rapid, our journey short; in a few moments I found myself led into a house, and ushered into a lighted apartment. I looked up, to see into what alderman's hands I had fallen. The reader may judge of my surprise, amounting almost to consternation, when I beheld myself in an elegant saloon, brilliantly lighted, and surrounded by a dozen or more gayly-dressed people of both sexes, among whom was my friend Ebenezer Wild, and two or three others whose countenances seemed familiar, but whom, in my surprise and confusion, I did not immediately recognise. A maiden, beautiful as the morning, and smiling as if her little heart was dancing out of her eyes, ran from the throng, and seized me by the hands, crying,-- "Now, uncle Zachariah, thee shall pay me what thee owes me, or be turned over to some other creditor!" I looked upon her in astonishment, and began to fancy I was in a dream. "What!" said my friend Ebenezer, "don't you know my little Ellen?" And thereupon he added other expressions, but what they were I retain no remembrance of, my wits being utterly amazed and confounded.