One of the officers planted himself against the front door, and gave general notice that no one would be allowed to remove any of the furniture. The other officer stationed himself at the back door, to carry out a similar policy at that point.
These manoeuvres caused consternation among the small creditors, and a vivid feeling of approval among the larger ones.
"I am happy to announce," said Quigg, "that the counsel of Mr. Whedell--one of the most distinguished ornaments of the bar--has now arrived, and will take charge of his client's affairs. To those who know the name of--" (Aside) "By the way, your name escapes me at this moment."
"Maltboy," said Matthew, a little flattered with this compliment.
"I repeat, that, to those who know the name of Maltboy, no assurance need be given that Mr. Whedell's affairs will be honorably adjusted." Quigg again winked at the young lawyer.
Matthew, having recovered from the flutter into which he was thrown, was about to disclaim the office thus thrust upon him, when the voice of Mr. Whedell was heard from the first landing. He had come to listen to the disturbance, and smile at it.
"It is my dear Maltboy!" he exclaimed, catching at the straw of a hope. "Thank Heaven! he is here. Yes, gentlemen, he is my lawyer, and I refer you to him for the adjustment of all your claims. Come up, my dear Maltboy."
"Oh! it is dear--good--Mr. Maltboy!" added a voice, qualified by sobs. "How kind of him--to--to come here at this time! Oh--ho!"
Maltboy never could resist Beauty in any condition; and, for Beauty in tears, he would cheerfully lay down his life. He did not deny that he was the counsel and confidential adviser of Mr. Whedell, but rushed up stairs, just in time to receive the falling form of Mrs. Chiffield in his arms.
Matthew felt that he had no moral right to clasp that burden of loveliness; but he took it tenderly in his arms, and followed Mr. Whedell into the room which father and daughter had just left. There he deposited it, with the gentleness of a professional nurse, on the sofa, when it opened its eyes, and faintly said, "Heaven bless you, our benefactor!"
The creditors were pouring into the apartment. "In the name of humanity," said Mr. Whedell, "leave us for a few moments. I appeal to you as gentlemen and Christians."
The appeal produced no effect; those to whom it was made conceiving, perhaps, that it did not apply to them. Maltboy added the remark: "If you will withdraw at once, I promise you that in fifteen minutes we will proceed to business."
"That's all right," said Quigg, winking again at Matthew. "Let us go, friends."
The proposition was accepted, as the best thing that could be done under the circumstances, and all the creditors retired.
Mr. Whedell then locked the door, and proceeded to inform Mr. Maltboy of the black-hearted treachery of which he and his daughter had been the victims, in the Chiffield alliance. Clementina corroborated the paternal statement with numerous particulars, delivered in a heart-broken voice, showing what an abandoned wretch her husband was. Matthew listened, nodded his head, and said, "The brute!" and the "The monster!" at intervals, looking the while into the deep blue eyes of Mrs. Chiffield, which sparkled with tears. "If he had but been the lucky man!" he thought. But it suddenly occurred to Matthew that these thoughts were a little irregular; and, besides, he had a fresh recollection of the troubles from which Fayette Overtop had not yet emerged. He therefore pulled out his watch, and informed Mr. Whedell that thirteen of the fifteen minutes were consumed. The creditors were beginning to pace heavily in the entry.
Mr. Whedell, taking the hint, came down to business. His affairs were of a kind that were easily settled. He owned nothing except his personal clothing, and a few small articles of furniture. Everything else had been obtained on credit, and either not paid for, or only partly paid for. This statement of affairs occupied one minute.
A minute remained, which Mr. Whedell put to good use. He looked appealingly at Maltboy. So did Mrs. Chiffield.
"My dear friend," said Mr. Whedell, "I find myself, at an advanced period of life, in this cold world, deserted, penniless. You are the only person living that I can call by the sacred name of friend. I have already experienced your noble bounty in a loan of two hundred dollars." (Tramps of creditors becoming louder outside.) "In a word, sir, can you lend me one hundred dollars more? It will at least save me from the self-destruction which I had contemplated."
At the word "self-destruction," Mrs. Chiffield cried aloud, and threw herself on her parent's breast, with a fresh flood of tears.
These tears swept away the last trace of Matthew's prudence. He whipped out his pocket book, and delivered over five twenty-dollar gold pieces to Mr. Whedell. The sight of those beautiful coins seemed to reconcile the wretched man to life.
Mr. Whedell was about to thank his preserver most profusely, and Mrs. Chiffield to burst into a new torrent, when Matthew, to avoid these demonstrations, rose, opened the door, and let in the pack of hungry creditors.
Now Matthew had, in these fleeting fifteen minutes, thought up no plan of settlement. Being taken aback by the sudden reappearance of the creditors, he did not know what to propose.
"Everything fixed, I s'pose?" said Rickarts, the shoemaker.
When Matthew was in strong doubt what to do in any case, it was his invariable custom to postpone. "I think," he feebly suggested, "that we had better postpone final action, say till three P.M. It would give us time--"
"Can't come it!" "No go!" "Now, or never!" were some of the exclamations which went up from the excited crowd.
Matthew was too good natured to quarrel with these insinuations. "My friends," said he, "as you appear to have unlimited confidence in each other, suppose you appoint a committee to dispose of this property, which my client generously" (cries of "Oh! oh!") "turns over to you, and divide the proceeds among yourselves pro rata"
The creditors looked at each other suspiciously. A want of that childlike trust which, in a perfect state of society should exist between man and man, was unhappily too apparent.
Just then, when Matthew was at his wits' end, the police man who guarded the front door entered the room, and delivered a note to Mr. Whedell. That gentleman perused it languidly, and passed it to Matthew.
"Good news," said he. "Mr. Abernuckle, the owner of these premises, who was intending to move in to-day, writes that he will not be able to take possession until noon to-morrow. Therefore, I say, let the creditors employ an auctioneer, hang out the red flag, sell, and divide, before that period arrives."
The large creditors were silent--Quigg veiling his dissatisfaction under a look of complete misanthropy--but the small ones, headed by Rickarts, the shoemaker, highly commended it.
"Besides," added a butter man, who had originally been in the mock-auction line, "don't ye see, we can all stay at the auction, and kind o' bid on the things. Hey?" The butter man nodded at the lesser creditors.
The idea took; only a few of the larger creditors holding out against it.
"My friends," again observed Matthew, drawing on his stores of legal knowledge, "you seem to forget that, if my client chose to resist your claims, he could retain a large amount of furniture as household articles under the law, which exempts certain necessary things. But, with rare magnanimity, he gives up all."
The allusion to magnanimity produced some derisive laughs, which slightly nettled Matthew.
"Auction it off," said he, "or we throw ourselves back on our reserved rights."
At this hint, everybody gave in; and a committee, consisting of Quigg, Rickarts, and the butter man, was appointed to make all the arrangements for an immediate sale.
It is not pleasant to pursue this painful theme--the decline and fall of the Whedell household--farther. Let the historian barely record, that the sale attracted a large crowd, and that, by the ingenious side bids of the creditors, the furniture was run up to twice its original value (no uncommon thing at auctions); that the creditors, large and small, were well satisfied with the results; that Mr. Whedell and daughter moved to Boston, and became stipendiaries upon a younger brother, who had made a fortune in the upholstery business, and whom Mr. Whedell had always despised; that Mr. Chiffield took to drink tenaciously in consequence of his misfortunes, and never saw or sought after his wife from the day when he discovered that she was dowerless; that Mrs. Chiffield obtained a divorce from the bonds of matrimony, but had not married again at last accounts; and that Matthew Maltboy, Esq., on looking over the whole episode of his acquaintance with the Whedells thanked his stars that he had got out of their entanglements on the reasonable terms of three hundred dollars.