John Paul.

"A guinea will not go far in a sponging-house," said he, and the
bailiff's man laughed.

The bailiff gave a direction we did not hear, and we drove off.
He proved a bluff fellow with a bloat yet not unkindly humour, and
despite his calling seemed to have something that was human in him.
He passed many a joke on that pitiful journey in an attempt to break our
despondency, urging us not to be downcast, and reminding us that the last
gentleman he had taken from Pall Mall was in over a thousand pounds, and
that our amount was a bagatelle. And when we had gone through Temple
Bar, instead of keeping on down Fleet Street, we jolted into Chancery
Lane. This roused me.

"My friend has warned you that he has no money," I said, "and no more
have I."

The bailiff regarded me shrewdly.

"Ay," he replied, "I know. But I has seen many stripes o' men in my
time, my masters, and I know them to trust, and them whose silver I must
feel or send to the Fleet."

I told him unreservedly my case, and that he must take his chance of
being paid; that I could not hear from America for three months at least.
He listened without much show of attention, shaking his head from side to
side.

"If you ever cheated a man, or the admiral here either, then I begin over