"This is a frolic, gentleman, I perceive. You are resolved to make me
your sport--ha! ha!" Sir Francis said, trying to disguise his uneasiness
under an appearance of levity--"But you will not carry the jest too far.
You will not maltreat me. My partner, Sir Giles Mompesson, will be here
anon, and will requite any outrage committed upon me."

"Sir Giles is impatiently expected by us," a spruce coxcomb near him
replied. "Madame Bonaventure had prepared us for his coming. We will
give him the welcome he deserves."

"Ah! traitress! then it was all planned," Sir Francis thought;--"and,
blind owl that I am, I have fallen into the snare."

But the poor knight was nearly at his wit's end with fright, when he saw
Lord Roos quit his place at the upper table and approach him.




CHAPTER VII.

How Lord Roos obtained Sir Francis Mitchell's signature.


"What, my prince of usurers!" exclaimed Lord Roos, in a mocking tone;
"my worthy money-lender, who never takes more than cent. per cent., and
art ill content with less; who never exacts more than the penalty of thy
bond,--unless more may be got; who never drives a hard bargain with a
needy man--by thine own account; who never persecutes a debtor--as the
prisons shall vouch for thee; who art just in all thy transactions--as