When James Sybo, the gardener, had brought out the chair and placed it on the opposite side of the table, I sat down to recount the particulars of my case. In the mean time, while the old servant was fetching it, I had inquired into the indisposition of his master, whom I found depressed in spirit, and who, unable to give any other name to his disease, described it as a sort of “alloverishness.”

As I related to him the crisis which had overcome the affairs of Corbet and Possy, he patiently listened. Contrary to his wonted impetuosity, he heard me to the conclusion, and when I had made an end, he was apparently seized with a violent fit of coughing, and not ready with any reply. He was evidently perplexed, but in this taciturnity I could discern a gathering of thought, and I waited quietly till it grew to words.

From the time of my becoming a partner with Mr. Possy, he had uniformly styled me Mister, or Mister Bogle Corbet, but on this occasion, stretching his hand to me across the table, he said kindly,

“Bogle, my lad, this cannot be called glad tidings; it's no’ the song of the shepherds of Bethlem watching by night. Man! I’m concerned for you.