to Mr. Sowerby that this business of his should be settled without delay, and yet these men, to whose care this settling was now confided, went on as though law processes were a sunny bank on which it delighted men to bask easily. And then, too, he had to go more than once to South Audley Street, which was a worse infliction; for the men in South Audley Street were less civil now than had been their wont. It was well understood there that Mr. Sowerby was no longer a client of the duke's, but his opponent; no longer his nominee and dependent, but his enemy in the county. "Chaldicotes," as old Mr. Gumption remarked to young Mr. Gagebee, "Chaldicotes, Gagebee, is a cooked goose, as far as Sowerby is concerned. And what difference could it make to him whether the duke is to own it or Miss Dunstable? For my part, I can not understand how a gentleman like Sowerby can like to see his property go into the hands of a gallipot wench whose money still smells of bad drugs. And nothing can be more ungrateful," he said, "than Sowerby's conduct. He has held the county for five-and-twenty years without expense, and now that the time for payment has come, he begrudges the price." He called it no better than cheating, he did not—he, Mr. Gumption. According to his ideas, Sowerby was attempting to cheat the duke. It may be imagined, therefore, that Mr. Sowerby did not feel any very great delight in attending at South Audley Street.
And then rumor was spread about among all the bill-discounting leeches that blood was once more to be sucked from the Sowerby carcase. The rich Miss Dunstable had taken up his affairs; so much as that became known in the purlieus of the Goat and Compasses. Tom Tozer's brother declared that she and Sowerby were going to make a match of it, and that any scrap of paper with Sowerby's name on it would become worth its weight in bank-notes; but Tom Tozer himself—Tom, who was the real hero of the family—pooh-poohed at this, screwing up his nose, and alluding in most contemptuous terms to his brother's softness. He knew better—as was indeed the fact. Miss Dunstable was buying up the squire, and, by jingo! she should buy them up—them, the Tozers, as well as others. They knew their value, the Tozers did, whereupon they became more than ordinarily active.
From them and all their brethren Mr. Sowerby at this
