Slumley being gone, Mrs. Prior came to me rather wistfully one day, and wanted to know whether I would object to Madame Bentivoglio, the opera-singer, having the first floor? This was too much, indeed! How was my work to go on with that woman practising all day and roaring underneath me? But after sending away so good a customer, I could not refuse to lend the Priors a little more money; and Prior insisted upon treating me to a new stamp, and making out a new and handsome bill for an amount nearly twice as great as the last: which he had no doubt under heaven, and which he pledged his honour as an officer and a gentleman that he would meet. Let me see: That was how many years ago?--Thirteen, fourteen, twenty? Never mind. My fair Elizabeth, I think if you saw your poor old father’s signature now, you would pay it. I came upon it lately in an old box I haven’t opened these fifteen years, along with some letters written--never mind by whom--and an old glove that I used to set an absurd value by; and that emerald-green tabinet waistcoat which kind old Mrs. Macmanus gave me, and which I wore at the L--d L--t--nt’s ball, Ph-n-x Park, Dublin, once, when I danced with _her_ there! Lord!--Lord! It would no more meet round my waist now than round Daniel Lambert’s. How we outgrow things! But as I never presented this united bill of 43_l._ odd (the first portion of 23_l._, &c. was advanced by me in order to pay an execution out of the house),--as I never expected to have it paid any more than I did to be Lord Mayor of London,--I say it was a little hard that Mrs. Prior should write off to her brother (she writes a capital letter), blessing Providence that had given him a noble income, promising him the benefit of her prayers, in order that he should long live to enjoy his large salary, and informing him that an obdurate creditor, who shall be nameless (meaning me), who had Captain Prior _in his power_ (as if being in possession of that dingy scrawl, I should have known what to do with it), who held Mr. Prior’s acceptance for 43_l._ 14_s._ 4_d._ due on the 3rd July (my bill), would infallibly bring their family to RUIN, unless a part of the money was paid up. When I went up to my old college, and called on Sargent, at Boniface Lodge, he treated me as civilly as if I had been an undergraduate; scarcely spoke to me in hall, where, of course, I dined at the Fellows’ table; and only asked me to one of Mrs. Sargent’s confounded tea-parties during the whole time of my stay. Now it was by this man’s entreaty that I went to lodge at Prior’s; he talked to me after dinner one day, he hummed, he ha’d, he blushed, he prated in his pompous way, about an unfortunate sister in London--fatal early marriage--husband, Captain Prior, Knight of the Swan with two Necks of Portugal, most distinguished officer, but imprudent speculator--advantageous lodgings in the centre of London, quiet, though near the Clubs--if I was ill (I am a confirmed invalid), Mrs.