Your being in the House has been such a comfort to me!" Phineas, who really liked his friend Laurence, expressed himself very warmly in answer to this, and became affectionate, and made sundry protestations of friendship which were perfectly sincere.

Their sincerity was tested after dinner, when Fitzgibbon, as they two were seated on a sofa in the corner of the smoking-room, asked Phineas to put his name to the back of a bill for two hundred and fifty pounds at six months' date.
"But, my dear Laurence," said Phineas, "two hundred and fifty pounds is a sum of money utterly beyond my reach." "Exactly, my dear boy, and that's why I've come to you.

D'ye think I'd have asked anybody who by any impossibility might have been made to pay anything for me ?" "But what's the use of it then ?" "All the use in the world.

It's for me to judge of the use, you know.
Why, d'ye think I'd ask it if it wasn't any use?
I'll make it of use, my boy.

And take my word, you'll never hear about it again.