“Here we are, Mr. Whedell, by appintment,” said the spokesman of the party, Rickarts, the shoemaker.

“I see you are,” responded the placid Whedell.  “Take seats, if you can find them, gentlemen.”  This with a real smile, for he thought of the arsenic, and the immeasurable relief that it would afford him.

“We don’t want seats, Mr. Whedell; and, if we did, there isn’t enough for all of us.  We want our pay, and have got tired of waitin’ down stairs for it.  You put us all off to the 1st of May, you know, expecting you said, to raise money enough by the marriage of your daughter (excuse the remark, marm, but business is business) to pay off all of us.  We found, on comparin’ notes down stairs, this mornin’, that you had told the same story to everybody.  Now, sir, as your daughter is married, accordin’ to the papers, and the 1st of May has arriv’, will you be good enough to square up?”

Mr. Whedell smiled touchingly.  “My good and patient friends,” said he, “nothing would give me greater pleasure—­I might say, without exaggeration, rapture—­than to pay all that I owe, with compound interest thrown in.  But, unfortunately for my excellent intentions, I have no money.”

“Blast me if that isn’t just what we expected!  I told ’em, down stairs, that I’d bet ten to one you couldn’t or wouldn’t raise any think out of your son-in-law.”

“Your name is Rickarts, I believe?” asked Mr. Whedell.

“Yes, Rickarts!” growled the owner of the appellation, “You ought to know it by this time; for I’ve dunned you often enough.”

“True, Mr. Rickarts, but then I have so many creditors, you see, that I cannot be expected to know them all.  I merely wanted to observe, Mr. Rickarts, that, at least, you have not been disappointed in your expectations.  Furthermore, that if you had made a bet of ten to one, it wouldn’t have been a bad speculation for you.”

Cries of “Pshaw!” “Humbug!” “Swindled!” “Done for!” and kindred expressions, arose from all sides.  The spokesman said:  “We ha’n’t got no time to joke, Mr. Whedell.  We have only to remark, now, that the best thing for you to do is to give up your furniture, without the trouble and expense of a lot of lawsuits.”

“You are perfectly welcome to the whole of it, my good friends,” said Mr. Whedell.

“The, deuce they are!” cried Quigg.  “Why, you have just turned it over to me!”

“I give it to all of you, singly and collectively, severally and jointly,” responded the happy, melancholy man.  “Divide it among yourselves, and leave me.”