When Dr. Leiden was still coming twice a day to Gloucester Street, Mr. Tom must needs get into a scrape with one of the ladies of the theatre, and come to me in the Circle chambers for one hundred pounds.  I told him, in despair, that I had no authority to pay out his father’s money.  “And so you have become master, sure enough!” he cried, in a passion.  For he was desperate.  “You have worked your way in vastly well, egad, with your Whig committee meetings and speeches.  And now he is on his back, and you have possession, you choose to cut me off.  ’Slife, I know what will be coming next!”

I pulled him into Mr. Swain’s private room, where we would be free of the clerks.  “Yes, I am master here,” I replied, sadly enough, as he stood sullenly before me.  “I should think you would be ashamed to own it.  When I came to your father I was content to be overseer in Talbot, and thankful for his bounty.  ’Tis no fault of mine, but your disgrace, that his son is not managing his business, and supporting him in the rights of his country.  I am not very old, Tom.  A year older than you, I believe.  But I have seen enough of life to prophesy your end and you do not reform.”

“We are turned preacher,” he says, with a sneer.

“God forbid!  But I have been in a sponging-house, and tasted the lowest dregs.  And if this country becomes free, as I think it will some day, such as you will be driven to England, and die in the Fleet.”

“Not while my father lives,” retorts he, and throws aside the oiled silk cape with a London name upon it.  The day was rainy.  I groaned.  My responsibility lay heavy upon me.  And this was not my first scene with him.  He continued doggedly:—­“You have no right to deny me what is not yours.  ’Twill be mine one day.”

“You have no right to accuse me of thoughts that do not occur to men of honour,” I replied.  “I am slower to anger than I once was, but I give you warning now.  Do you know that you will ruin your father in another year and you continue?”

He gave me no answer.  I reached for the ledger, and turning the pages, called off to him the sums he had spent.

“Oh, have done, d—­n it!” he cried, when I was not a third through.  “Are you or are you not to give me the money?”

“And you are to spend it upon an actress?” I should have called her by a worse name.

“Actress!” he shouted.  “Have you seen her in The Orphan?  My soul, she is a divinity!” Then he shifted suddenly to whining and cringing.  “I am ruined outright, Richard, if I do not get it.”

Abjectly he confessed the situation, which had in it enough material for a scandal to set the town wagging for a month.  And the weight of it would fall; as I well knew, upon those who deserved it least.

“I will lend you the money, or, rather, will pay it for you,” I said, at last.  For I was not so foolish as to put it into his hands.  “You shall have the sum under certain conditions.”