Roy Richmond, the wish of our hearts! to assist at her wedding; and can we ask it, and have an execution hanging over him?  And for all my husband’s a guest here, he’s as likely as not to set the officers at work, do what I will, to-morrow or any day.  Your father invited us, Mr. Harry.  I forced my husband to come, hoping against hope; for your papa gave the orders, relying on me, as he believed he might, and my husband undertook them, all through me.  There it stops; he hears reports, and he takes fright:  in goes the bill:  then it’s law, and last Oh!  I’m ashamed.’

Mr. Disher’s bill was for supplying suppers to the Balls.  He received my cheque for the amount in full, observing that he had been confident his wife was correct when she said it would be paid, but a tradesman’s business was to hasten the day of payment; and, for a penance, he himself would pacify the lawyers.

On hearing of the settlement of Mr. Disher’s claim, my father ahem’d, speechless, which was a sign of his swallowing vexation.  He remarked that I had, no doubt with the best intentions, encroached on his liberty.  ’I do not like to have my debts disturbed.’  He put it to me, whether a man, carrying out a life-long plan, would not be disconcerted by the friendliest intervention.  This payment to Disher he pronounced fatal in policy.  ’You have struck a heavy blow to my credit, Richie.  Good little Mistress Dolly brought the man down here—­no select addition to our society—­and we were doing our utmost to endure him, as the ladies say, for the very purpose . . . but the error stands committed!  For the future, friend Disher will infallibly expect payments within the year.  Credit for suppers is the guarantee of unlimited entertainments.  And I was inspiring him with absolute confidence for next year’s campaign.  Money, you are aware, is no longer a question to terrify me.  I hold proofs that I have conclusively frightened Government, and you know it.  But this regards the manipulation of the man Disher.  He will now dictate to me.  A refresher of a few hundreds would have been impolitic to this kind of man; but the entire sum! and to a creditor in arms!  You reverse the proper situations of gentleman and tradesman.  My supperman, in particular, should be taught to understand that he is bound up in my success.  Something frightened him; he proceeded at law; and now we have shown him that he has frightened us.  An execution?  My dear boy, I have danced an execution five years running, and ordered, consecutively, at the same house.  Like other matters, an execution depends upon how you treat it.  The odds are that we have mortally offended Mistress Dolly.’  He apologized for dwelling on the subject, with the plea that it was an essential part of his machinery of action, and the usual comparison of ‘the sagacious General’ whose forethought omitted no minutiae.  I had to listen.