"I say it as seriously," replied the writer, "as ever you answered a homethrust to-day in the sheriff's office, as to the amount of stock you lost by the burning of your premises--as sure as a decree of the Fifteen. I say your loss had made her repent; so come away with the claret." Mr Thriven emptied the whole of the half bottle, at one throw, into a tumbler. "Drink, thou pink of an attorney!" said he, and then fell back into his chair, his mouth wide open, his eyes fixed on the roof, and his two hands closed in each other, as if they had been two notes for five thousand each. "Are you mad, Mr Thriven?" cried Sharp, after he had bolted the whole tumbler of claret. "Yes!" answered Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven. "Have you any more of this Bordeaux water in the house?" "Yes!" answered Mr Thriven. "Open that lockfast" (pointing to a press), "and drink till you are only able to shout 'M'Whirter'--'Cockenzie'--'Thriven'--'ten thousand'--'hurra!'--and never let a word more come out of you, till you fall dead drunk on the floor." The first part of the request, at least, was very quickly obeyed, and two bottles were placed on the table, one of which the attorney bored in an instant, and had a good portion of it rebottled in his stomach by the time that Mr Thriven got his eyes taken off the roof of the chamber. "Hand me half-a-tumbler!" cried he, "that I may gather my senses, and see the full extent of my misfortune." "Misfortune!" echoed Sharp. "Ay!" rejoined Samuel, as he turned the bottom of the tumbler to the roof. "Why did Grizel M'Whirter die, sir, until I got my discharge?" "Ah, sir!" replied Sharp, on whom the wine was already beginning to operate, "you have thus a noble opportunity of being the architect of a reputation that might be the envy of the world. You can now pay your creditors in full--twenty shillings in the pound, and retain five thousand to yourself, with the character of being that noblest work of nature--an honest man.' "When a thing is utterly beyond one's reach," rejoined Samuel, looking, with a wry face, right into the soul of the attorney, "how beautiful it appears." Sharp accepted coolly the cut, because he had claret to heal it, otherwise he would have assuredly knocked down Mr Samuel Thriven. "I beg your pardon, Mr Sharp!" continued his friend; "but I felt a little pained, sir, at the high-flown expression of the great good that awaits me, as if I were not already conscious of being, and known to be, that noblest work of nature. The cut came from you, Mr Sharp, and I only returned it. All I regret, sir, is, that my aunt did not live till I got my discharge, because then, not being bound to pay my creditors one farthing, I might have paid them in full, without obligation at all, and thereby have proved myself what I am--a _generous_ man. No more of the claret. You must away with me to Cockenzie, to see that the repositories are sealed, and the will safe."