"Poh! I hate all 'Pilgrim's-Progress'-reading insolvents!" rejoined the husband, taking the book out of his wife's hands. "Go, love, and get ready the tea, while I sojourn with the Elstow tinker in the valley of humiliation, out of which a cup of China brown stout and some converse will transport me to the 'house beautiful.'" And Mr Bairnsfather, while his wife went to prepare tea, and his many children were dispersed here and there and everywhere, got very rapidly into "Vanity Fair," of the which, being somewhat aweary, as he said, with a yawn, he turned the leaves over and over, and at last fixed his eyes on the leaf that had once been, though it was now no longer, blank. The awl of the Elstow tinker himself never could have gone with greater determination through the leather of a pair of bellows, than did Mr Bairnsfather's eye seem to penetrate that written page. Like the seer of the vision of a ghost in the night, he drew his head back, and he removed it forwards, and he shut his eyes, and opened his eyes, and rubbed his eyes; and the more he did all this, the more he was at a loss to comprehend what the writing on the said blank leaf was intended to carry to the eyes of mortals. It was of the handwriting of Mr Samuel Ramsay Thriven, for a certainty--he could swear to it; for the bill he had in his possession--and whereby he would lose three-fourth parts of two hundred pounds--was written in the same character. What _could_ it mean? "What _can_ it mean?" he said, again and again. "How should I, if you, who are a cleverer man, do not know, Mr Bairnsfather," said Mr Wrench, who was standing at his back, having entered in the meantime. "I have read the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' which Mrs B. says you are reading, more than once, and fairly admit that there are obscure passages in it. But here comes Mr Horner, who can perhaps unravel the mystery, if you can point out what limb of the centipede allegory it is which appears to you to have a limp." "By my faith, it is in the tail," said Mr Bairnsfather, as he still bored his eyes into the end of the book. "Let me see the passage," said Mr Horner. And all the three began to look at the writing, which set forth the heads and particulars of Mr Samuel Thriven's gain by his bankruptcy. "A very good progress for a pilgrim," said Mr Horner; and they looked at each other knowingly, and winked their six eyes, and nodded their three heads. Miss M'Falzen and the tea came in at this moment. The three creditors were mute, and the devout spinster was talkative. Mrs Bairnsfather then filled up and handed round the tea-cups (they sat all close to the table), and her husband handed round to his two friends the book. "What an interest that book _does_ produce," said Miss Angelina, apparently piqued by the attention shown to the genius of the tinker. "Come, now, Miss Angelina," said Mrs Bairnsfather, "confess that that copy produces no small interest in yourself, considering the hands it was in to-day."