'Sir,' said Mr. Probus, at whose heels marched a turnkey, 'you do me an injustice for which you will one day be sorry. Am I your detaining creditor?' The man cursed him again, I know not why, and turned on his heel. Then I stepped forward. 'Did you come here to gloat over your work, Mr. Probus?' 'Mr. William? I hope you are well, Sir. The prison air, I find, is fresh from the fields. You look better than I expected. To be sure it is early days. You are only just beginning.' 'You will be sorry to hear that I am very well.' 'I would have speech in a retired place, Mr. William.' 'You want once more to dangle your bribe before me. I understand, sir, very well, what you would say.' 'Then let me say it here. Your cousin, I may say, deplores deeply this new disgrace to the family. He earnestly desires to remove it. I am again empowered to purchase an imaginary reversion. Mr. William, he will now make it £4,000. Will that content you?' 'Nothing will content me. There is some secret reason for this persecution. You want--you--not my cousin--to get access to this great sum of money. Well, Mr. Probus, my opinion is that my cousin will die before me. And since I am firmly persuaded upon that point, and since I believe that you think so too, my answer is the same as before.' 'Then,' he said, 'stay here and rot.' He looked round the prison. 'It is a pleasant place for a young man to spend his days, is it not? All his days--till an attack of gaol fever or small-pox visits the place. Eh? Eh? Eh? Then you will be sorry.' 'I shall never be sorry, Mr. Probus, to have frustrated any plots and designs of yours. Be assured of that--and for the rest, do your worst.' He slowly walked away without a word. But all the devil in his soul flared in his eyes as he turned. 'You do wrong,' said the turnkey who had accompanied him. 'Tis the keenest of his kind. Not another attorney in all London has brought us, not to speak of the Fleet and Newgate, more prisoners than Mr. Probus. For hunting up detainers and running up the costs he has no equal.' 'He is my detaining creditor,' I said. The turnkey shrugged his shoulders. 'Young gentleman,' he said, 'I see that you are a gentleman, although you are a fiddler--take advice. Agree with his terms quickly, whatever they are. He made you an offer--take it, before he lands you in another court with new writs and more costs.' In fact, the very next day, I heard that there was another writ in the name of one John Merridew, Sheriff's officer, for fifty pounds alleged to have been lent to me by him. As for Mr. John Merridew, I knew not even the name of the man, and I had never borrowed sixpence of anyone. I showed the writ to my friend the turnkey. He read it with admiration. 'I told you so,' he said, 'what a man he is! And Merridew, too--Merridew! And you never borrowed the money, and never saw the man! What a man! What a man! Merridew, too, under his thumb! There's ability for you! There's resource!'