gambled away the ten pounds at Roxham fair, instead of paying it into
the bank as you told me, but he persuaded me to it, and he was to have
shared the profits if we won. I was a blackguard, but he was a bigger
blackguard; why should I have all the blame and have that fellow
continually shoved down my throat as a saint? And so I thrashed him,
and that is all about it."

"Sir, I am sorry to contradict Philip, but indeed he is in error; the
recollection of what took place has escaped him. I could, if
necessary, bring forward evidence--Mr. Bellamy----"

"There is no need, George, for you to continue," and then, fixing his
glittering eye on Philip: "it is very melancholy for me, having only
one son, to know him to be such a brute, such a bearer of false
witness, such an impostor as you are. Do you know that I have just
seen Mr. Bellamy, the head clerk at the bank, and inquired if he knew
anything of what happened about that ten pounds, and do you know what
he told me?"

"No, I don't, and I don't want to."

"But I really must beg your attention: he told me that the day
following the fair your cousin George came to the bank with ten
pounds, and told him how you had spent the ten pounds I gave you to
pay in, and that he brought the money, his own savings, to replace
what you had gambled away; and Bellamy added that, under all the
circumstances, he did not feel justified in placing it to my credit.
What have you to say to that?"

"What have I to say? I have to say that I don't believe a word of it.