ay in the
money to meet the other bill, and bring me the balance. You will find no
difficulty with Tozer's name; and what so likely as that one respectable
tradesman should help another? By the way, the affair is a private one
between us, and it is unnecessary to say anything to him about it; the
arrangement, you understand, is between him and me."

"Beg your pardon, sir," said Cotsdean, with a deprecatory movement of
his hand to his forehead; "but it is me as will be come upon first if
anything happens, and that fifty pounds--"

"Have you ever found me to fail you, Cotsdean? If you knew the anxiety I
have gone through, that you might be kept from harm, the sleepless
nights, the schemes, the exertions! You may suppose it was no ordinary
effort to ask a man like Tozer."

Cotsdean was moved by the touching tone in which his partner in trouble
spoke; but terror gave him a certain power. He grumbled still, not
altogether vanquished.

"I don't say nothing against that, sir," he said, not meeting Mr. May's
eye; "but when it comes to be paid, sir, I'm the first in it, and where
is that other fifty to come from? That's what I'm a thinking for--for
I'm the first as they'd haul up after all."

"You!" said Mr. May, "what could they get from you? You are not worth
powder and shot. Don't be ridiculous, my good fellow. I never avoid my
responsibilities, as you know. I am as good, I hope, for that fifty as
for all that went before. Have you ever known me leave you or any one in
the lurch?"

"No, sir, I can't say as--I don't suppose I have. I've always put my
trust in you like in Providence itself," he cried, hastily, holding his
breath.

"Then do as I tell you," said Mr. May, waving his hand with careless
superiority; and though his heart was aching with a hundred anxious
fears, he left the shop with just that mixture of partial offence and
indifference which overawed completely his humble retainer. Cotsdean
trembled at his own guilty folly and temerity. He did not dare to call
his patron back again, to ask his pardon. He did n