“I suppose, by your non-appearance, that the philasophy of my note, and the previous silence of the writer, have put or kept you in humeur. Never mind—it is hardly worth while.
“This day have I received information from my man of law of the non—and never likely to be—performance of purchase by Mr. Claughton, of impecuniary memory. He don’t know what to do, or when to pay; and so all my hopes and worldly projects and prospects are gone to the devil. He (the purchaser, and the devil too, for aught I care) and I, and my legal advisers, are to meet to-morrow,—the said purchaser having first taken special care to inquire ‘whether I would meet him with temper?’—Certainly. The question is this—I shall either have the estate back, which is as good as ruin, or I shall go on with him dawdling. which is rather worse. I have brought my pigs to a Mussulman market. If I had but a wife now, and children, of whose paternity I entertained doubts, I should be happy, or rather fortunate, as Candide or Scarmentado. In the mean time, if you don’t come and see me, I shall think that Sam’s bank is broke too; and that you, having assets there, are despairing of more than a piastre in the pound for your dividend.
