“Not to-day, at least.”

“I am not disposed to be too hard with you,” said the man, slightly softening in his tone; “and will say at a word what I will do, and all I will do.  You can take up five hundred of these bills to-day, five hundred in one week, and the balance in equal sums at two and three weeks.  I yield this much; but, understand me, it is all I yield, and you need not ask for any further consideration.

“Well, sir, what do you say?” Full five minutes after the collector had given his ultimatum, he thus broke in upon the perplexed and undecided silence of the unhappy victim of his own weakness and folly.  “Am I to receive five hundred dollars now, or am I not?”

“Call in an hour, and I will be prepared to give an answer,” said Wilkinson.

“Very well.  I’ll be here in one hour to a minute,” and the man consulted his watch.

And to a minute was he there.

“Well, sir, have you decided this matter?” said he, on confronting Wilkinson an hour later.  He spoke with the air of one who felt indifferent as to which way the decision had been made.  Without replying, Wilkinson took from under a paper weight on his desk a check for five hundred dollars, and presented it to the collector.

“All right,” was the satisfied remark of the latter as he read the face of the check; and, immediately producing his large pocket-book, drew forth Wilkinson’s due-bills, and selecting one for three hundred and one for two hundred dollars, placed them in his hands.

“On this day one week I will be here again,” said the man, impressively, and, turning away, left the store.

The moment he was out of sight, Wilkinson tore the due-bills he had cancelled into a score of pieces, and, as he scattered them on the floor, said to himself—­“Perish, sad evidences of my miserable folly!  The lesson would be salutary, were it not received at too heavy a cost.  Can I recover from this?  Alas!  I fear not.  Fifteen hundred more to be abstracted from my business, and in three weeks!  How can it possibly be done?”

To a certain extent, the lesson was salutary.  During the next three weeks, Wilkinson, who felt a nervous reluctance to enter a drinking-house lest he should meet Carlton, kept away from such places, and therefore drank but little during the time; nor did he once go out in the evening, except in company with his wife, who was studious, all the time, in the science of making home happy.  But it was impossible for her to chase away the shadow that rested upon her husband’s brow.

Promptly, on a certain day in each week of that period, came the man who held the due-bills given to Carlton, leaving Wilkinson five hundred dollars poorer with each visitation—­poorer, unhappier, and more discouraged in regard to his business, which was scarcely stanch enough to bear the sudden withdrawal of so much money.