“Very well; seek your redress in law,” said Wilkinson, angrily.  “Occasionally, gamblers and pickpockets get to the end of their rope; and, perhaps, it may turn out so in this instance.  My only regret now is, that I didn’t let the matter go to court in the beginning.”

The man turned off hastily, but paused ere he reached the door, stood musing for a while, and then came slowly back.

“Give me your note at sixty days,” said he.

“No, sir,” was the firm reply of Wilkinson.  “I offered my note at six months.  For not a day less will I give it; and I don’t care three coppers whether you take it or no.  I had about as lief test the matter in a court of justice as not.”

The man again made a feint to retire, but again returned.

“Say three months, then.”

“It is useless to chaffer with me, sir.”  Wilkinson spoke sternly.  “I have said what I will do, and I will do nothing else.  Even that offer I shall withdraw if not accepted now.”

The man seemed thrown quite aback by the prompt and decisive manner of Wilkinson, and, after some hesitation and grumbling, finally consented to yield up the balance of the due-bills for a note payable in six months.

“Saved as by fire!” Such was the mental ejaculation of Wilkinson, as the collector left the store.  “I stagger already under the extra weight of fifteen hundred dollars.  Five hundred added now would come nigh to crushing me.  Ah! how dearly have I paid for my folly!”

While he still sat musing at his desk, his friend Ellis came in, looking quite sober.

“I know you’ve been pretty hard run for the last week or ten days,” said he, “but can’t you strain a point and help me a little?  I’ve been running about all the morning, and am still two hundred dollars short of the amount to be paid in bank to-day.”

“Fortunately,” replied Wilkinson, “I have just the sum you need.”

“How long can you spare it?”

“Until day after to-morrow.”

“You shall have it then, without fail.”

The money was counted out and handed to Ellis, who, as he received it, said in a desponding voice—­

“Unless a man is so fortunate as to be born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he finds nothing but up-hill work in this troublesome world.  I declare!  I’m almost discouraged.  I can feel myself going behindhand, instead of advancing.”

“Don’t say that.  You’re only in a desponding mood,” replied Wilkinson, repressing his own gloomy feelings, and trying to speak encouragingly.

“I wish it were only imagination.  It is now nearly ten years since I was married, and though my business, at the time, was good, and paying a fair profit on the light capital invested, it has, instead of getting more prosperous, become, little and by little, embarrassed, until now—­I speak this confidently, and to one whom I know to be a friend—­were every thing closed up, I doubt if I should be worth five hundred dollars.”