"My dee-ar Mr Ping--you'll pardon me? I ask you as a man, as an artist in your profession, could I see my son--my heir--a gentleman who I hope some day will make a brilliant match--a young man who is going at once into the best of society--could I now, Mr Ping, see that youth in a suit of clothes made by Crowder and Son? Refuse my appeal, if you please, my dear sir, but--you'll pardon me--do not add insult to the injury." Mr Ping was mollified, and rubbed his hands softly. This was flattering: for Crowder and Son, according to his view of the case, did not deserve to be called tailors--certainly not gentlemen's tailors; but he remained firm. "No, Mr Denville, sir, far be it from me to wish to insult you, sir, and I thank you for the amount of custom you've brought me. You can't say as I'm unfair." "You'll pardon me, Mr Ping; I never did." "Thank you, sir; but as I was a saying, you've had clothes of me, sir, for years, and you haven't paid me, sir, and I haven't grumbled, seeing as you've introduced me clients, but I can't start an account for Mr Denville, junior, sir, and I won't." The MC took snuff, and rested first on one leg and then on the other; lastly, he held his head on one side and admired two or three velvet waistcoat pieces, so as to give Mr Ping time to repent. But Mr Ping did not want time to repent, and he would not have repented had the MC stayed an hour, and this the latter knew, but dared not resent, bowing himself out at last gracefully. "Good-morning, Mr Ping, good-morning. I am sorry you--er--but no matter. Lovely day, is it not?" "Lovely, sir. Good-morning--poor, penniless, proud, stuck-up, half-starved old dandy," muttered the prosperous tradesman, as he stood in his shirt-sleeves at the door, his grey hair all brushed forward into a fierce frise, and a yellow inch tape round his neck like an alderman's chain. "I wouldn't trust his boy a sixpence to save his life. Prospects, indeed. Fashion, indeed. I expect he'll have to 'list." The MC went smiling and mincing along the parade, waving his cane jauntily, and passing his snuff-box into the other hand now and then to raise his hat to some one or another, till he turned up a side street, when, in the solitude of the empty way, he uttered a low groan, and his face changed. "My God!" he muttered. "How long is this miserable degradation to last?" He looked round sharply, as if in dread lest the emotion into which he had been betrayed should have been observed, but there was no one near. "I must try Barclay. I dare not go to Frank Burnett, for poor May's sake." A few minutes later he minced and rolled up to a large, heavy-looking mansion in a back street, where, beneath a great dingy portico, a grotesque satyr's head held a heavy knocker, and grinned at the visitor who made it sound upon the door. "Hallo, Denville, you here?" said Mr Barclay, coming up from the street. "Didn't expect to see you. I've got the key: come in."