'Hollo, you, Sir; what do want there ?' cried the surgeon, with a sort of unaccountable antipathy and fear.

'He lost his last shilling in the great bankruptcy, in October,' answered Dunstan's voice behind his ear; and in the earth-coloured face which the beggar turned up towards him, Sturk recognised his own features--''Tis I'-- he gasped out with an oath, and awoke in a horror, not knowing where he was.
'I--I'm dying.' 'October,' thought Sturk--'bankruptcy.

'Tis just because I'm always thinking of that infernal bill, and old Dyle's renewal, and the rent.' Indeed, the surgeon had a stormy look forward, and the navigation of October was so threatening, awful, and almost desperate, as he stood alone through the dreadful watches at the helm, with hot cheek and unsteady hand, trusting stoically to luck and hoping against hope, that rocks would melt, and the sea cease from drowning, that it was almost a wonder he did not leap overboard, only for the certainty of a cold head and a quiet heart, and one deep sleep.
And, then, he used to tot up his liabilities for that accursed month, near whose yawning verge he already stood; and then, think of every penny coming to him, and what might be rescued and wrung from runaways and bankrupts whose bills he held, and whom he used to curse in his bed, with his fists and his teeth clenched, when poor little Mrs.Sturk, knowing naught of this danger, and having said her prayers, lay sound asleep by his side.

Then he used to think, if he could only get the agency in time it would set him up--he could borrow L200 the day after his appointment; and he must make a push and extend his practice.

It was ridiculous, that blackguard little Toole carrying off the best families in the neighbourhood, and standing in the way of a man like him; and Nutter, too--why, Lord Castlemallard knew as well as he did, that Nutter was not fit to manage the property, and that _he was_--and Nutter without a child or anyone, and _he_ with seven! and he counted them over mentally with a groan.