His creditors do not exist. As I told you, I have paid them off,
bought up all their debts, and the yes or no rests with me alone."

"Quite so; I was merely putting it as the Act directs. Very well
then, supposing _you_ agree, nothing more is necessary than an
appearance--a purely formal appearance--at the Old Bailey, and your
unfortunate friend--"

"Pardon me," my father put in; "he is not my friend."

"Eh?" . . . Mr. Knox removed his spectacles, breathed on them, and
rubbed them, while he regarded my father with a bewildered air.
"You'll excuse me . . . but I must own myself entirely puzzled.
Even for a friend's sake, as I was about to protest, your conduct,
sir, would be Quixotic; yes, yes, Quixotic in the highest degree, the
amount being (as you might say) princely, and the security--"
Mr. Knox paused and expressed his opinion of the security by a
pitying smile. "But if," he resumed, "this man be not even your
friend, then, my dear sir, I can merely wonder."

For a moment my father seemed about to argue with him, but checked
himself.

"None the less the man is very far from being my friend," he answered
quietly.

"But surely--surely, sir, you cannot be doing this in any hope to
recover what he already owes you! That were indeed to throw the
helve after the hatchet. Nay, sir, it were madness--stark madness!"