“The horse lost. I knew it next morning before I was up, for I had sent for the newspaper; and while I was in the midst of my fright, up comes my landlady to say that a gentleman of the name of B—y wished to see me. “I had never seen him before, and he seemed an easy fellow enough. He was in a terrible way—chiefly on my account—though the Lord only knew how much _he_ had lost over the ‘sell.’ He had come up by express purely to relieve my anxiety, knowing how ‘funky’ young gentlemen sometimes were over such trifles. Although he had really paid the fifty in hard gold out of his pocket, he was in no hurry for it. He would take my bill at two months. It would be all right, no doubt. He had conceived a liking for me, merely from my straightforward way of writing. Now that he had had the pleasure of seeing me, he shouldn’t trouble himself a fig if the fifty that I owed him was five hundred. “I declare to you that I knew so little about bills, that I didn’t know how to draw one out; but I was mighty glad to be shown the way and to give it him, and thank him over and over again for his kindness. That was the beginning of my going to the devil. If I hadn’t been a fool, I might have saved myself even then, for I had friends who would have lent or given me twice fifty pounds if I had asked them for it. But I _was_ a fool. In the course of a day or two I got a note from B—y, reminding me that the way out of the difficulty was by the same path as I had got into one, and that a little judicious ‘backing’ would set me right before even my bill fell due. And I was fool enough to walk into the snare. I wouldn’t borrow to pay the fifty pounds, but I borrowed left and right, of my mother, of my brothers, on all manner of lying pretences, to follow the ‘advice’ B—y was constantly sending me. When I came to the end of their forbearance, I did more than borrow; but that we won’t speak of. In five months from the beginning, I was without a relative who would own me or speak to me, and without an employer—cracked up, ruined. And there’s B—y, as I said before, with his white hat cocked on one side of his head, and his gold toothpick, chaffing me about my old boots. What do I do for a living? Well, I’ve told you such a precious lot, I may as well tell you that too. Where I lodge it’s a ‘leaving-shop,’ and the old woman that keeps it can’t read or write, and I keep her ‘book’ for her. That’s how I get a bit of breakfast and supper and a bed to lie on.”