"Ah! it's very well for you to say so; but I know it is; it's just
like him. He looks like a man that's always in debt--that's always
in a sponging-house. Anybody might swear it. I knew it from the
very first time you brought him here--from the very night he put his
nasty dirty wet boots on my bright steel fender. Any woman could see
what the fellow was in a minute. Prettyman! a pretty gentleman,
truly, to be robbing your wife and family!

"Why couldn't you let him stop in the sponging--Now don't call upon
heaven in that way, and ask me to be quiet, for I won't. Why
couldn't you let him stop there? He got himself in; he might have
got himself out again. And you must keep me awake, ruin my sleep, my
health, and for what you care, my peace of mind. Ha! everybody but
you can see how I'm breaking. You can do all this while you're
talking with a set of low bailiffs! A great deal you must think of
your children to go into a lawyer's office.

"And then you must be bail--you must be bound--for Mr. Prettyman!
You may say, bound! Yes--you've your hands nicely tied, now. How he
laughs at you--and serve you right! Why, in another week he'll be in
the East Indies; of course he will! And you'll have to pay his
debts; yes, your children may go in rags, so that Mr. Prettyman--what
do you say?

"IT ISN'T PRETTYMAN?

"I know better. Well, if it isn't Prettyman that's kept you out,--if
it isn't Prettyman you're bail for--who is it, then? I ask, who is
it, then? What?