Poor Titmouse was very dull for some little time after this sudden abduction of this bold and brilliant spirit, and spoke of bringing an action, at the suggestion of Fitz-Snooks, against the miscreant who had dared to set the law in motion at Yatton, under the very nose of its lord and master. As soon, however, as Gammon intimated to him that all those who had lent Yahoo money, might now rely upon that gentleman's honor, and whistle back their cash at their leisure, Titmouse burst out into a great rage; telling Gammon that he, Titmouse, had only a day or two before lent Yahoo £150!! and that he was a "cursed scamp," who had known, when he borrowed, that he could not repay; and a Detainer, at the suit of "Tittlebat Titmouse, Esq.," was one of the very earliest that found its way into the sheriff's office; this new creditor becoming one of the very bitterest and most relentless against the fallen Yahoo, except, perhaps, Mr. Fitz-Snooks. That gentleman having lent the amiable Yahoo no less a sum than thirteen hundred pounds, remained easy all the while, under the impression that certain precious documents called "I.O.U.'s" of the said Yahoo were as good as cash. He was horribly dismayed on discovering that it was otherwise; that _he_ was not to be paid before all other creditors, and immediately; so he also sent a very special message in the shape of a Detainer, backed by a great number of curses. In process of time Mr. Yahoo bethought himself of getting "_white-washed_;" but when he came to be inspected, it was considered that he was not properly _seasoned_; so the operation was delayed for two years, under a very arbitrary statute, which enacted, "that if it should appear that the said prisoner had contracted any of his debts _fraudulently_, or by means of _false pretences_, or _without having had any reasonable or probable expectation, at the time when contracted, of paying the same_," &c. &c. &c., "or should be indebted for damages recovered in any _action for criminal conversation_, or _seduction_, or for _malicious injuries_, &c. &c., such prisoner should be discharged as to such debts and damages, so soon only as he should have been in custody at the suit of such creditors for a period or periods not exceeding two years." Such is the odious restraint upon the liberty of the subject, which at this day, in the nineteenth century, is suffered to disgrace the statute law of England; for, in order to put _other Yahoos_ upon their guard against the cruel and iniquitous designs upon them, I here inform them that the laws under which Mr. Yahoo suffered his two years' incarceration, (every one of his debts, &c., coming under one or other of the descriptions above mentioned,) are, _proh pudor_! re-enacted and at this moment in force, and in augmented stringency,[20] as several most respectable gentlemen, if you could only get access to them, would tell you.