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208 "This man has not only written to me, but has absolutely forced his way into my rooms when I was dressing for dinner, and absolutely had the impudence to tell me that if I did not honor some bill which he holds for eight hundred pounds, he would proceed against me."

"But you settled all that matter with Sowerby?"

"I did settle it at a very great cost to me. Sooner than have a fuss, I paid him through the nose—like a fool that I was—every thing that he claimed. This is an absolute swindle, and if it goes on I will expose it as such."

Robarts looked round the room, but luckily there was not a soul in it but themselves. "You do not mean to say that Sowerby is swindling you?" said the clergyman.

"It looks very like it," said Lord Lufton; "and I tell you fairly that I am not in a humor to endure any more of this sort of thing. Some years ago I made an ass of myself through that man's fault. But four thousand pounds should have covered the whole of what I really lost. I have now paid more than three times that sum; and, by heavens! I will not pay more without exposing the whole affair."

"But, Lufton, I do not understand. What is this bill? Has it your name to it?"

"Yes, it has; I'll not deny my name, and, if there be absolute need, I will pay it; but if I do so, my lawyer shall sift it, and it shall go before a jury."

"But I thought all those bills were paid?"

"I left it to Sowerby to get up the old bills when they were renewed, and now one of them that has in truth been already honored is brought against me."

Mark could not but think of the two documents which he himself had signed, and both of which were now undoubtedly in the hands of Tozer, or of some other gentleman of the same profession—which both might be brought against him, the second as soon as he should have satisfied the first. And then he remembered that Sowerby had said something to him about an outstanding bill, for the filling up of which some trifle must be paid, and of this he reminded Lord Lufton.

"And do you call eight hundred pounds a trifle? If so, I do not."

"They will probably make no such demand as that."

"But I tell you they do make such a demand, and have