He looked at Mrs. Stubbs, and made a bow. "Perhaps it will be convenient to you to pay this little bill, one hundred and fifty-two poundsh?"
"My love," says she, "will you pay this? It is a trifle which I had really forgotten." "My soul!" said I, "I have really not the money in the house."
"Vel, denn, Captain Shtubbsh," says he, "I must do my duty—and arrest you—here is the writ! Tom, keep the door!"—My wife fainted—the children screamed, and I—fancy my condition, as I was obliged to march off to a sponging house, along with a horrid sheriff's officer!
1. Abolition of arrest on suspicion of debt, 1838.
——Right little grieve I To take my leave of all the tribe of Levi! I care not now whom I may chance to meet In Chancery Lane or Carey Street; Gentile or Jew, or neither, or what not, The bailiff's occupation's gone to pot, And all their sport, thank common sense, is over; Unless you find a man to swear, That he heard another man declare, That as he was walking the streets one day, He met with Jones, who was heard to say, That Smith intended to run away, Across the straits of Dover. But, any way, it does seem rather funny To lock a man within four walls, and bid him seek for money. There's no occasion now for me to hide, Tho' once I was a deeply versed _court guide_; I fear not now a single rap, Nor startle at a tap. From my boot's sole to my hat crown, I'll have it all set down; As to my tailleur, his suit's a failure, And talking of a writ, quite a mis-fit; So, spite his measures, I'll take my pleasures; And, since for debt I need not run away, Shall I, like vulgar traders, stoop to pay? Nay!
Philosophers sagely declare, Without reservation or stealth, That the source of true happiness here Is an equal division of wealth.
I shall not describe my feelings when I found myself in a cage in Cursitor-street, instead of that fine house in Berkeley Square, which was to have been mine as the husband of Mrs. Manasseh. What a palace!—in an odious, dismal street leading from Chancery Lane,—a hideous Jew boy opened the second of three doors; and shut it when Mr. Nabb and I (almost fainting) had entered: then he opened the third door, and then I was introduced to a filthy place, called a coffee-room, which I exchanged for the solitary comfort of a little dingy back-parlour, where I was left for a while to brood over my miserable fate. Fancy the change between this and Berkeley Square! Was I, after all my pains, and cleverness, and perseverance, cheated at last? Had this Mrs. Manasseh been imposing upon me, and were the words of the wretch I met at the _table-d'hôte_ at Leamington, only meant to mislead me and take me in? I determined to send for my wife, and know the whole truth. I saw at once that I had been the victim of an infernal plot, and that the carriage, the house in town, the West India fortune, were only so many lies which I had blindly believed. It was true the debt was but a hundred and fifty pounds: and I had two thousand at my bankers. But was the loss of _her_ £80,000 nothing? Was the destruction of my hopes nothing?—The accursed addition to my family of a Jewish wife, and three Jewish children, nothing? And all these I was to support out of my two thousand pounds. I had better have stopped at home, with my mamma and sisters, whom I really did love, and who produced me eighty pounds a-year.