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Chaboisseau, a bill-discounter, whose dealings were principally with the book trade, lived in a second-floor lodging furnished in the most eccentric manner. A brevet-rank banker and millionaire to boot, he had a taste for the classical style.
Of money, they know no more than that it is a necessary instrument of their pleasures, and must be got some how or anyhow; accordingly, they are on intimate terms with a species of shark called a bill-discounter, who commits upon them every sort of robbery, under the sanction of the law; and who also is always a "d d honest fellow."
He had received two thousand pounds from the bills which Alice had executed on his behalf, or rather, had received the full value of three out of the four bills, and a part of the value of the fourth, on which he had been driven to raise what immediate money he had wanted by means of a Jew bill-discounter.
"Indeed!" exclaimed the bill-discounter, looking inexpressibly shocked. Until that moment he had lived in supreme ignorance of the fact that Mr. Sheldon had a stepdaughter; but his sorrow-stricken expression of countenance might have implied that he had known and esteemed the young lady. "Yes, it's very sad," said Mr. Sheldon; "and something more than sad for me.
"Pooh!" "Yes, she is the only heir to the old bill-discounter Gobseck. Derville will verify the facts. If your mistress' mother was the handsome Dutch woman, la Belle Hollandaise, as they called her, she comes in for " "I know dat she is," cried the banker. "She tolt me all her life. I shall write ein vort to Derville."
They walked out into the evening air unnoticed; he had given his consent to follow the bill-discounter without resistance, and he had no thought to break his word; he had submitted himself to the inevitable course of this fate that had fallen on him, and the whole tone of his temper and his breeding lent him the quiescence, though he had none of the doctrine of a supreme fatalist.
All he knew was that at the beginning of every quarter Mr. M'Ruen got nearly the half of his little modicum of salary, and that towards the middle of it he usually contrived to obtain an advance of some small, some very small sum, and that when doing so he always put his hand to a fresh bit of paper. He was beginning to be heartily sick of the bill-discounter.
Peck saw it was of no use to press her offers on her husband in the face of such formidable opposition. On the following day she started early in the mail conveyance for Adelaide, leaving Peck behind as a pledge for the settlement of the bill, and determined to raise ten or twelve pounds somehow. With Mr. Talbot's letter in her hand she presented herself to a bill-discounter in Adelaide.
You tell me that you are a married man, with children, dependent on daily labor for daily bread, and that you have done a little discounting for Miss Snape, out of your earnings. Now, although I am a bill-discounter, I don't like to see such men victimized. Look at the body of this bill look at the signature of your lady-customer, the drawer.
That gentleman honoured him with no further explanations, but put the papers in his pocket, and wished the bill-discounter good day. And this was the last time that Philip Sheldon was ever seen in his character of a solid and respectable citizen of London.
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