"Not so fast, friend," exclaimed Howison, making after his prey, and again slapping him on the shoulder, but now less ceremoniously. "You are my prisoner, and here's my authority," he added, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. It was the decreet against Simmins. "Although _you_ don't know Fairly, _I_ happen to know Fairly's surtout. The short and the long of the matter is, sir," continued Howison, "that I arrest you at the instance of John Fairly, tailor and clothier, for a debt of £4:15s., with interest and expenses, said debt being the price of the identical surtout which you have just now on your back. So come along quietly, or it may be worse for you." We do not suppose it is necessary that we should describe the amazement of the unhappy wearer of the surtout in question, on so very extraordinary and incomprehensible a statement being made to him, nor that of his party, from the same cause. The reader will at once conceive what it was, without any such proceeding on our part. Confounded, however, and amazed as he was, Jacob's presence of mind instantly showed him that he was in a dilemma, a regular scrape. That he must either acknowledge--and, in the presence of all his fair friends, there was death in the idea--that the surtout he wore, and which had procured for him so much admiration, was a borrowed one, or quietly submit to be dragged to jail as the true debtor. Jacob further saw exactly how the case stood. He saw that his friend Simmins had never paid for the very flashy article in which he was now arrayed (a discovery this, however, which did not in the least surprise him), and that _he_ was the person for whom the honours of Howison were intended.