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98 "Ha! ha! ha! you don't know Harold Smith. Did you ever hear of his lending a man a shilling in his life?"

"Or Supplehouse?"

"Lord love you! you see me and Supplehouse together here, and he comes and stays at my house, and all that, but Supplehouse and I are no friends. Look you here, Mark! I would do more for your little finger than for his whole hand, including the pen which he holds in it. Fothergill indeed might; but then I know Fothergill is pressed himself at the present moment. It is deuced hard, isn't it? I must give up the whole game if I can't put my hand upon £400 within the next two days."

"Ask her for it herself."

"What, the woman I wish to marry! No, Mark, I'm not quite come to that. I would sooner lose her than that."

Mark sat silent, gazing at the fire and wishing that he was in his own bedroom. He had an idea that Mr. Sowerby wished him to produce this £400; and he knew also that he had not £400 in the world, and that if he had he would be acting very foolishly to give it to Mr. Sowerby. But, nevertheless, he felt half fascinated by the man, and half afraid of him.

"Lufton owes it to me to do more than this," continued Mr. Sowerby; "but then Lufton is not here."

"Why, he has just paid five thousand pounds for you."

"Paid five thousand pounds for me! Indeed, he has done no such thing; not a sixpence of it came into my hands. Believe me, Mark, you don't know the whole of that yet. Not that I mean to say a word against Lufton. He is the soul of honor, though so deucedly dilatory in money matters. He thought he was right all through that affair, but no man was ever so confoundedly wrong. Why, don't you remember that that was the very view you took of it yourself?"

"I remember saying that I thought he was mistaken."

"Of course he was mistaken. And dearly the mistake cost me. I had to make good the money for two or three years. And my property is not like his. I wish it were."

"Marry Miss Dunstable, and that will set it all right for you."

"Ah! so I would if I had this money. At any rate, I would bring it to the point. Now I tell you what, Mark,