I assure you that I was within an ace of going over.
Down like a pack of cards came all my dreams as to the
grand results which were to spring from my journey to
Avonmouth. Yes, Bertie, I am bound to confess it: my
first thought was of my own disappointment, and my
second of the misfortune of my friends. He had the most
diabolical intuitions, or I a very tell-tale face, for he
added at once--

"Sorry to disappoint you, my boy. That's not what
you expected to hear, I can see."

"Well," I stammered, "it IS rather a surprise,
old chap. I thought from the . . . from the . . ."


"From the house, and the footman, and the furniture,"
said he. "Well, they've eaten me up among them . . .
licked me clean, bones and gravy. I'm done for, my boy,
unless . . ."--here I saw a question in his eyes--"unless
some friend were to lend me his name on a bit of stamped
paper."

"I can't do it, Cullingworth," said I." It's a
wretched thing to have to refuse a friend; and if I had
money . . ."

"Wait till you're asked, Munro," he interrupted, with
his ugliest of expressions. "Besides, as you have
nothing and no prospects, what earthly use would YOUR