"Well, let me see," he said again, as he seized the pen, and held the blank leaf open before him. "The three thousand pounds lost by the fire is a very good item; I can easily make a very good list of very bad debts to the extent of five hundred pounds; I have three thousand of good banknotes in the house; and if I get off with a dividend of five shillings in the pound, which I can pay out of my stock, I may clear by this single transaction, in the way of business, as much as may make me comfortable for the whole period of my natural life." And having made some monologue of this kind, he began to jot down particulars; laying on the table his pen, occasionally, to take another glass of the port wine, and resuming his operation again, with that peculiar zest which accompanies a playfulness of the fancy on a subject of darling interest. So he finished his arithmetical operation and dream, just about the time when the wine finished him; fell sound asleep; and awoke about two in the morning, with a headache, and no more recollection of having committed his secret to the blank leaf of the "Pilgrim's Progress," than if he had never written a word thereon at all. CHAP. III.--THE FACING OF CREDITORS. Of all men in the world, a bankrupt requires to wear a lugubrious look. It is proper, too, that he should keep the house, hold out the flag of distress, and pretend that he is an unfortunate mortal, who has been the prey either of adverse fate or designing rogues. Of all this Mr Thriven was well aware as ever man could be; no man could have acted the dyvour better than he, even though he had been upon the pillory, with the bankrupt's yellow cap on his head. Creditors kept calling upon him--some threatening imprisonment, and some trying to cajole him out of a preference; but Mr Samuel was a match for them all. "It is all very well to look thus concernedly," said Mr Horner, a large creditor; "but will this pay the two hundred pounds you owe me?" "Would to heaven that it might!" replied Mr Thriven, drawing his hand over his eyes; "but, alas! it is the peculiar feature of the misfortune of bankruptcy, that a man who has been himself ruined--ay, burned out of his stock by a fire that he had no hand in raising, and thus made a beggar of, probably for ever--receives not a single drop of sympathy in return for all the tears he sheds for his unfortunate creditors. Your case concerns me, sir, most of all; and, were it for nothing in the wide world but to make up your loss, I will strive with all my energies, even to the urging of the blood from the ends of my laborious fingers, and to the latest period of a wretched existence." And Mr Horner being mollified, he was next attacked by Mr Wrench. "It is but fair to inform you, sir," said the vulture-faced dealer in ginghams, "that I intend to try the effect of the prison upon you."