Ten shillings would feed him for a week. He strode out of the shop again with the ten shillings in his pocket and the seventeen pounds safe in the keeping of the high priest. There was a man who owed him fourteen shillings, and who, when the time came to go to Venice, might possibly be induced to part with that necessary ten, if he were asked for it as a loan. A man will willingly lend you ten shillings if he owes you fourteen; it is the paying you back that he does not like. As he passed out into the street, John kept his face rigidly averted from the little Nankin milk jug. He had played that milk jug a sly, and a nasty trick. It was really nothing to be proud about. When he returned to Number 39, there was a man waiting outside his door, a man dressed in a light-brown tweed, the colour of ripening corn. He had on a shiny-red silk tie, adorned with a pin--a horseshoe set with pearls. His face was round, fat and solemn--the solemnity that made you laugh. He put John in good spirits from the loss of the Nankin milk jug, the moment he saw him. Someone had left the door into the street open and so he had come upstairs. "Who are you?" asked John. "Well--my name’s Chesterton, sir, Arthur Chesterton." John opened his door with the innocence of a babe, and the man followed him into the room, closely at his heels. "And what do you want?" asked John. Mr. Chesterton handed him a paper. John looked it through. "Yes--of course--my two quarter’s rent. They shall be paid," he said easily. "There’s money due to me next month." Mr. Chesterton coughed behind his hand. "It must be now," he said quietly. "That is to say--I must wait here till I get it." A bailiff! And Jill was coming to tea! In another half hour she would be there! She knew he was poor; she thought Fetter Lane a terrible neighbourhood; but with all her imagination, she had not conceived anything as terrible as this. There was only one way; to explain everything. He had a lady coming to tea with him that afternoon--a lady--did he understand? Anyhow, he nodded his head. Well--it was quite impossible for her to find him there--a bailiff! It was not his fault, of course, that he was a bailiff, but he must see how impossible the position was. The little man nodded his head again. Well, would he go away; just for a short time, till they had had tea. He could return then, John promised he would let him in. He knew that once a bailiff was out of possession, he was powerless; but this was a matter of honour. On his honour he would let him in again. Mr. Chesterton blinked his eyes. "Sometimes," he replied quietly--"Sometimes they tell me it’s their father as is comin’--then again, if it’s a woman, she says her husband’ll be back in a minute and her husband’s always a man with an ’orrible bad temper what’s liable to do dangerous things. And sometimes, they say it’s a girl they’re sweet on--same as you." "But I’ll swear it’s true!" cried John wildly.