"Not from my creditors," replied Wood, significantly.

"Will he post the cole? Will he come down with the dues? Ask him that?"
cried Blueskin.

"You hear," pursued Jonathan; "my friend desires to know if you are
willing to pay your footing as a member of the ancient and respectable
fraternity of debtors?"

"I owe no man a farthing, and my name shall never appear in any such
rascally list," replied Wood angrily. "I don't see why I should be
obliged to pay for doing my duty. I tell you this child would have been
strangled. The noose was at its throat when I called for help. I knew
it was in vain to cry 'murder!' in the Mint, so I had recourse to
stratagem."

"Well, Sir, I must say you deserve some credit for your ingenuity, at
all events," replied Jonathan, repressing a smile; "but, before you put
out your foot so far, it would have been quite as prudent to consider
how you were to draw it back again. For my own part, I don't see in what
way it is to be accomplished, except by the payment of our customary
fees. Do not imagine you can at one moment avail yourself of our
excellent regulations (with which you seem sufficiently well
acquainted), and the next break them with impunity. If you assume the
character of a debtor for your own convenience, you must be content to
maintain it for ours. If you have not been arrested, we have been
disturbed; and it is but just and reasonable you should pay for
occasioning such disturbance. By your own showing you are in easy
circumstances,--for it is only natural to presume that a man who owes
nothing must be in a condition to pay liberally,--and you cannot