I was grievously disappointed at having to part with so good a friend; but she promised to write to me every week, and gave me the strictest injunctions to send to her for advice or help whenever I should find myself in need. I had no hesitation whatever, then, in asking her in my weekly letter for help to carry out my plan, and that was to find Revitts and Mary the money to buy the lease of the house in Great Ormond Street, so that Mary would be better able to attend to her friends, and, while acting as their landlady, supply me with better rooms as well. I broached the subject to Revitts and his wife that very evening, and the former nodded. "How much would it take, Ant'ny?" he said. "The lease would be a hundred pounds," I said. "Then the rent is eighty." "That's a deal of money, my dear," said Mary; "and then there's the rates." "Yes," I said; "but then look here, Mary; I should like a sitting-room as well as a bedroom now, and I could pay you twenty-five or thirty pounds a year for that. I know Mr Hallett pays twenty-six for what he has, and you could, as you often said you would like to, let another floor; for it is a large house. I think you would live rent-free." "There," cried Revitts, giving the table a slap. "What do you think of that, Polly?" "Think of what?" she said tartly; for the seriousness of the subject unsettled her. "What he says. D'ye hear his business-like way of reckoning it up: so much for this here, and so much for that there? He couldn't have talked like that when he come up to London first, as green as a bit o' grass. That's my teaching, that is. I knew I could sharpen him up." "Don't be so conceited, Bill," she exclaimed. "But a large house means lots of furniture, Master Antony. No, I don't think it would do. We haven't enough." "But I've written to Miss Carr, to ask her to let me have the money for you." Revitts got up out of his chair, where he was partaking of tea and bread and butter in a rather wholesale style, pulled himself together, buttoned up his coat, took a couple of official strides to where I sat, and, taking my hand, began shaking it up and down for some moments. Then he gave Mary three or four wags of the head and nods, and went back to his tea, unbuttoning the while. "That's very nice and kind of you, Master Antony," she said; "but that money would be only borrowed, and it would have to be paid back again, and sit upon us like lumps of lead till it was--" "Oh, nonsense, Mary, I don't believe Miss Carr would ever want it back-- I think she'll give me the money. And besides, I mean to furnish my own rooms, so that will be two less." "Hark at that now!" said Revitts, giving his head a wag. "I don't want to seem conceited, but I should like to improve my room, and have a place for my books, and be able to bring a friend home to have tea or supper with me when I liked."