if you'll assist me at this strait I'll never forget it; and the time will come round when I may be able to do something for you."
"I have not got a hundred, no, not fifty pounds by me in the world."
"Of course you've not. Men don't walk about the streets with £400 in their pockets. I don't suppose there's a single man here in the house with such a sum at his bankers', unless it be the duke."
"What is it you want, then?"
"Why, your name, to be sure. Believe me, my dear fellow, I would not ask you really to put your hand into your pocket to such a tune as that. Allow me to draw on you for that amount at three months. Long before that time I shall be flush enough." And then, before Mark could answer, he had a bill stamp and pen and ink out on the table before him, and was filling in the bill as though his friend had already given his consent.
"Upon my word, Sowerby, I had rather not do that."
"Why! what are you afraid of?" Mr. Sowerby asked this very sharply. "Did you ever hear of my having neglected to take up a bill when it fell due?" Robarts thought that he had heard of such a thing; but in his confusion he was not exactly sure, and so he said nothing.
"No, my boy, I have not come to that. Look here: just you write, 'Accepted, Mark Robarts,' across that, and then you shall never hear of the transaction again; and you will have obliged me forever."
"As a clergyman, it would be wrong of me," said Robarts.
"As a clergyman! Come, Mark! If you don't like to do as much as that for a friend, say so; but don't let us have that sort of humbug. If there be one class of men whose names would be found more frequent on the backs of bills in the provincial banks than another, clergymen are that class. Come, old fellow, you won't throw me over when I am so hard pushed."
Mark Robarts took the pen and signed the bill. It was the first time in his life that he had ever done such an act. Sowerby then shook him cordially by the hand, and he walked off to his own bedroom a wretched man.
