Now Mr. Deer and Mr. John Pocock were severally sixty-three years of age and upward, and the enmities of sixty-three years are pertinacious things. Mr. Deer, therefore, would willingly have avoided Mr. John Pocock; but that gentleman, on the contrary, put his arm through his, talked to him very civilly, and, leading the conversation to the affairs of Mr. Deer's house, gave him a hint, with perfect kindness of intent and manner, that his partner might be getting on too fast. Mr. Deer was agitated, alarmed, and irritated; and, if he had done what his heart bade him, he would have told his companion to mind his own business, and to meddle with nobody else's affairs, for that he, John Deer, was rich enough to buy out him, John Pocock, and all his relations. He refrained, however, and answered as civilly as the nature of the case would allow; but returned to his partner's house, and instantly set to work to investigate the matter thoroughly. Sad and alarming was the result of his inquiries. He found that, during the five or six years of his absence, his partner, although he had contrived to make a fair show in their half-yearly accounts, had, in fact, addicted himself to banking, farming, and such vices. Immense sums were risked at that moment in hazardous speculations, and Mr. Deer saw himself inextricably implicated in transactions which he would not have meddled with for the world of his own free-will. The matter went on as simply as it is possible to conceive. His partner, seeing that Mr. Deer was now convinced that he had trusted once too far, grew angry, resisted the interference which might have saved him, hurried recklessly on in the wrong course, and, ere four months were out, the house of Deer and Co. were bankrupts to the amount of more than a hundred thousand pounds. By the wise and strenuous efforts which Mr. Deer had made during those unhappy four months to retrieve the affairs of his firm, they were enabled to pay very nearly twenty shillings in the pound. But the beautiful house under the castle was advertised for sale; the rich furniture and plate were disposed of by auction; and Mr. Deer retired to a small cottage next to that of the widow Stanhope.