Page:Stubbs's Calendar or The Fatal Boots.djvu/106

90 The letter ran thus: "Messrs. Childs & Co. present their compliments to Captain Stubbs, and regret that they have been obliged to refuse payment of the inclosed, having been served this day with an attachment by Messrs. Solomonson & Co., which compels them to retain Captain Stubbs’s balance of £2,010 11s. 6d. until the decision of the suit of Solomonson v. Stubbs.

"Fleet street."

"You see," says Mr. Nabb, as I read this dreadful letter, "you see, Shtubbsh, dere vas two debts,—a little von, and a big von. So dey arrested you for de little von, and attashed your money for de big von."

Don't laugh at me for telling this story; if you knew what tears are blotting over the paper as I write it; if you knew that for weeks after I was more like a madman than a sane man,—a madman in the Fleet prison, where I went, instead of to the desert island. What had I done to deserve it? Hadn’t I always kept an eye to the main chance? Hadn’t I lived