“Irregular?”

“Not legally irregular—­oh no, not in the least.  Legally the thing’s as simple as A B C. The man has only to take the benefit of the Act of Insolvency, assign his estate to his creditors, and then—­ supposing that they are agreed—­”

“There can be no question of their agreement or disagreement.  His creditors do not exist.  As I told you, I have paid them off, bought up all their debts, and the yes or no rests with me alone.”

“Quite so; I was merely putting it as the Act directs.  Very well then, supposing you agree, nothing more is necessary than an appearance—­a purely formal appearance—­at the Old Bailey, and your unfortunate friend—­”

“Pardon me,” my father put in; “he is not my friend.”

“Eh?” . . .  Mr. Knox removed his spectacles, breathed on them, and rubbed them, while he regarded my father with a bewildered air.  “You’ll excuse me . . . but I must own myself entirely puzzled.  Even for a friend’s sake, as I was about to protest, your conduct, sir, would be Quixotic; yes, yes, Quixotic in the highest degree, the amount being (as you might say) princely, and the security—­” Mr. Knox paused and expressed his opinion of the security by a pitying smile.  “But if,” he resumed, “this man be not even your friend, then, my dear sir, I can merely wonder.”

For a moment my father seemed about to argue with him, but checked himself.

“None the less the man is very far from being my friend,” he answered quietly.

“But surely—­surely, sir, you cannot be doing this in any hope to recover what he already owes you!  That were indeed to throw the helve after the hatchet.  Nay, sir, it were madness—­stark madness!”

My father glanced at my uncle Gervase, who stood pulling his lip; then, with an abrupt motion, he turned on Mr. Knox again.

“You have seen him?  You delivered my letter?”

“I did.”

“What was his answer?”

Mr. Knox shrugged his shoulders.  “He jumped at it, of course.”

“And the boy, here!  What did he say about the boy?”

“Well, to speak truth, Sir John, he seemed passably amused by the whole business.  The fact is, prison has broken him up.  A fine figure he must have been in his time, but a costly one to maintain . . . as tall as yourself, Sir John, if not taller; and florid, as one may say; the sort of man that must have exercise and space and a crowd to admire him, not to mention wine and meats and female society.  The Fleet has broken down all that.  Even with liberty I wouldn’t promise him another year of life; and, unless I’m mistaken, he knows his case.  A rare actor, too!  It wouldn’t surprise me if he’d even deceived himself.  But the mask’s off.  Your offer overjoyed him; that goes without saying.  In spite of all your past generosity, this new offer obviously struck him for the moment as too good to be true.  But I cannot say, Sir John, that he made any serious effort to keep up the imposture or pretend that the security which he can offer is more than a sentimental one.  Not to put too fine a point on it, he ordered in a couple of bottles of wine at my expense, and over the second I left him laughing.”