"Well, sir," said the butcher, "there have been payments; but the
balance has always been gaining; and we have been put off so often, we
determined to see the master. Show you the books, sir, and welcome."

"This instant, if you please." He took the butcher's address, who then
retired, and the other tradesman, a grocer, told him a similar tale;
balance, sixty pounds odd.

He went to the butcher's, sick at heart, inspected the books, and saw
that, right or wrong, they were incontrovertible; that debt had been
gaining slowly, but surely, almost from the time he confided the
accounts to his wife. She had kept faith with him about five weeks, no
more.

The grocer's books told a similar tale.

The debtor put his hand to his heart, and stood a moment. The very
grocer pitied him, and said, "There's no harry, doctor; a trifle on
account, if settlement in full not convenient just now. I see you have
been kept in the dark."

"No, no," said Christopher; "I'll pay every shilling." He gave one gulp,
and hurried away.

At the fishmonger's, the same story, only for a smaller amount.

A bill of nineteen pounds at the very pastrycook's; a place she had
promised him, as her physician, never to enter.

At the draper's, thirty-seven pounds odd.