It was far from being smooth sailing. Jimmy's wits were taxed to the utmost to ward off creditors who grew more and more importunate in their demands. One day while he was down town trying to raise a loan, Mrs. Marsh was subjected to such a mortifying and humiliating experience that she feared she would never rally from the nervous shock it caused her. It was her regular day at home, and Henry, the butler, stiff in gold embroidered livery, was busy at the front door ushering in carriage arrivals. As already hinted, his mistress was long in arrears with her tradespeople, and being ever apprehensive of a court summons, she had given Henry implicit instructions to carefully scrutinize all comers and slam the heavy door in their faces on the slightest suspicion that the visitors were not all they appeared to be. Having served the best families for nearly thirty years, Henry was in a position to assure his employer that he was more than a match for the wiliest lawyer. Nor had he overestimated his powers. Loudest among the clamoring creditors was the milkman. His bill was formidable, and every effort to collect it had failed. He procured a summons, but it was found impossible to serve it. Every trick known to the thick-soled sleuths of the sheriff's office was thwarted by the vigilant and resourceful Henry. The worthy milkman suddenly conceived a bright idea. Among his customers was a young woman lawyer to whom he spoke about the matter. Properly indignant at the treatment to which he had been subjected she offered to help him. She was a novice at serving summonses, but possessed plenty of the quality so necessary in the courts known as "nerve." This modern Portia, after a preliminary survey of the premises which she was to take by storm, quickly determined upon a plan of action. Learning in the neighborhood that Mrs. Marsh was "at home" to her friends every Thursday afternoon, she decided to be one of the guests. Dressing herself in her best finery she took a hansom cab and drove to West Seventy-second Street, arriving at the Marsh residence simultaneously with a venerable old lady whom she politely assisted with her wraps. The old dame had no recollection of having seen the young woman before, but distrusting her own bad memory, concluded that she was one of Mrs. Marsh's younger friends whom she had forgotten, and thanked her profusely for her kind attentions. The two women approached the front door together. To the hawk-eyed butler, always on the alert, the young woman was a stranger, and, under ordinary circumstances, his suspicions might have been aroused, but seeing her chatting in the most cordial way with one of his mistress's oldest friends, he felt that any questioning on his part would be resented as unwarranted impertinence. Bowing low, therefore, he ushered the two ladies up the thickly carpeted stairs into the beautifully decorated reception rooms, which were already crowded with smartly dressed women.