The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 307: what you’re looking at

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292 THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. say that you can cut him altogether, being engaged us you are to his lordship’s sister-——” “ Now pray don’t preach a sermon,” interrupted Saxondale, affecting an air of fatigue. “If you wish me to hear one, I will go with you and attend Dr. Dronewell at St. George’s, Hanover Square, and if he don’t send us all to sleep, may I be hanged if I know who wil}.” “Well, about ‘these debts then,” cried Marlow, tossing his head and pursing up his mouth, as much as to imply that there was nothing to be done with such a being as Edmund. “I see here one Mus- ters, represented as holding promissory notes for four thousand pounds. Pray how much have you received in hard cash out of this?” _ “ Oh! [had the value safe enough,” replied Saxon- dale; “and I don’t want any compromise made with him, becayse he was recommended to me by a young lady of my acquaintance, and it wouldn’t look well if it came to her ears that it was a mere dividend affair, and not a regular settlement. She would cut me dead if she thought it was a fifteen- shilling-in-the-pound business.” “ And pray who is this exceedingly fastidious young lady ?” “Ah! that’s tellings,” responded Saxondale. “ A mistress, I presume?” cried Marlow. “That is the way to devour your substance. Look at those tin-boxes. Half of them contain the title-deeds of noblemen’s estates, or else mortgage-bonds and so forth; and V’ll be bound to say that Woman was at the bottom of all the extravagances of which they are the proofs. But come, Lord Saxondale, you must give us the explanations we require; or we will put our negative upon the settlement altogether. I ask you therefore, how much money in hard cash did you receive from this Musters for the four thou- sand pounds of promissory notes that he holds P Do be candid; for we shall find it all out.” “Well then, I had three thousand pounds,” re- plied Saxondale, “Three thousand in hard eash. And what else P” * A hundred pounds in wine-warrants.” “What have you done with them P” “The wine was so bad it wasn’t drinkable ; and so I sold the warrants for twenty pounds.” “'Do whom did you sell them ?” “To old Musters himself.” “Ah! that’s just what I thought,” ejaculated Marlow. ‘The wine never went out of the Docks at all, LT suppose P” “Never. He produced a bottle as a sample; but the first glass was enough.” * Ife’s a very honest man to sell you things at one moment for a hundred pounds, and buy them back the next for twenty, But what else did you get from him P” “ Four hundred pounds in Debentures of the Carribbee Island Gold-Mining and Pearl-Diving Association.” “ And what did you do with them ?” * Old Musters told me that they were capitas secu- CL LLL LLL LLL LLL “T did not like to offend old Musters by taking them back, so I put them into the fire.” : “The only place they were fit for,’ observed Marlow. “Well, we have still yet five hundred pounds to account for——” “Oh! that was for interest, bonus, and so on,” exclaimed Saxondale; “and I don’t think it was out of the way.” “Tn plain terms, this Musters has charged you a thousand pounds, minus twenty for the wine, for the loan of three thousand for about eight or nine months. Now, we see here,’ continued Marlow, referring to the list of debts, “items for a carriage and horses—an immense bill at a wine-merchant’s— plate and jewellery at a goldsmith’s—and a fearful account at a milliner’s. What are all these?” “For the lady who introduced me to Musters,” answered Saxondale. “ She took care to be well rewarded for her trouble, at all events. But how happens it that in less than one year you have run up a tailor’s bill for thirteen hundred pounds? That would give you a hundred and thirty suits of clothes at ten pounds each.” “Ah! but it isn’t all for clothes,’ responded Saxondale: “ there’s about seven hundred of it for cash lent.” “Oh! then I suppose this six hundred pounds at a cigar-shop in the Quadrant, is not at all for cigars ? If so, one would think you must have kept a whole regiment in tobacco for the last six months. Come, how much of this is money bor- rowed ?” “ About two-thirds,’ repned Edmund. “ But hay’n’t you pretty nearly got explanations enough ?” “ No—not quite. What are we to understand by this memorandum which states you to be answer- able for a friend to the amount of three thousand pounds to Israel Isaacs of Chancery Lane?” “Oh! that the Sheriff’s Officer, you know——” “We know very well who he is: but who is the friend for whom you are answerable ?” “Why, Staunton, to be sure. And now for heaven’s sake have done, or I shall never get away.” ‘Stop, stop: don’t be ina hurry! This business is more serious than any other you can have in hand. There is such a host of tradesmen in the list that it would seem as if all the expenses of Saxondale House fell upon your shoulders; and many of them too are her ladyship’s tradesmen. LI recognize their names. How can you owe them money like this?” “Well, if you must know, Lord Petersfield and you have kept me so uncommon short that I have been obliged to run in here and there and borrow an occasional cool hundred, or so, wherever it was _handiest.” | j } } i “Then, I should say that almost every shop- keeper in Regent Street, and Bond Street, and in Piceadilly, have been found handy by your lordship at times ?” “Uncommonly handy,” returned Saxondale. “But rities, almost at a premium; and so [ went to a have you done now ?” stock-broker and asked him to buy them. I don’t | “YT think, Mr. Malton,” said Marlow, appeaung know much about these things—and I was rather to his partner, “that we need not enter mueh astonished when he told me they were not worth deeper into these affairs?” eighten-pence apiece.” “The list is indeed much worse than we antici- “What did you do with them?” demanded Mr. pated,’ observed Mr. Malton: “ but for this once I | suppose it must be settled,” Marlow. 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