Mrs. Hall, you can stay if you like, but I assure you that I am going to change all my dress." Suiting the action to the word, he began to remove his lower garments, when Mrs. Hall, shocked and furious, rushed from the room.

This reminds us of Sheridan's treatment of a female creditor. He had for some years hired his carriage-horses from Edbrooke in Clarges Street, and his bill was a heavy one. Mrs. Edbrooke wanted a new bonnet, and blew up her mate for not insisting on payment. The curtain lecture was followed next day by a refusal to allow Mr. Sheridan to have the horses till the account was settled. Mr. Sheridan sent the politest possible message in reply, begging that Mrs. Edbrooke would allow his coachman to drive her in his own carriage to his door, and promising that the matter should be satisfactorily arranged. The good woman was delighted, dressed in her best, and bill in hand, entered the M. P.'s chariot. Sheridan meanwhile had given orders to his servants. Mrs. Edbrooke was shown up into the back drawing-room, where a slight luncheon, of which she was begged to partake, was laid out; and she was assured that her debtor would not keep her waiting long, though for the moment engaged. The horse-dealer's wife sat down and discussed a wing of chicken and glass of wine, and in the mean time her victimizer had been watching his opportunity, slipped down stairs, jumped into the vehicle, and drove off. Mrs. Edbrooke finished her lunch and waited in vain; ten minutes, twenty, thirty, passed, and then she rang the bell: "Very sorry, ma'am, but Mr. Sheridan went out on important business half an hour ago." "And the carriage ?" "Oh, ma'am, Mr. Sheridan never walks."

He procured his wine in the same style. Chalier, the winemerchant, was his creditor to a large amount, and had stopped supplies. Sheridan was to give a grand dinner to the leaders of the Opposition, and had no port or sherry to offer them. On the morning of the day fixed he sent for Chalier, and told him he wanted to settle his account. The importer, much pleased, said he would go home and bring it at once. "Stay," cried the debtor, "will you dine with me to-day? Lord

Sir and So-and-so are coming." Chalier was flattered and readily accepted. Returning to his office, he told his clerk that he should dine with Mr. Sheridan, and therefore leave early. At the proper hour he arrived in full dress, and was no sooner in the house than his host dispatched a message to the clerk at the office, saying that Mr. Chalier wished him to send up at once three dozen of Burgundy, two of claret, two of port, etc., etc. Nothing seemed more natural, and the wine was forwarded, just in time for the dinner. It was high

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ly praised by the guests, who asked Sheridan who was his wine-merchant. The host bowed toward Chalier, gave him a high recommendation, and impressed him with the belief that he was telling a polite falsehood in order to secure him other customers. Little did he think that he was drinking his own wine, and that it was not, and probably never would be, paid for!

In like manner, when he wanted a particular Burgundy from an innkeeper at Richmond, who declined to supply it till his bill was paid, he sent for the man, and had no sooner seen him safe in the house than he drove off to Richmond, saw his wife, told her he had just had a conversation with mine host, settled every thing, and would, to save them trouble, take the wine with him in his carriage. The condescension overpowered the good woman, who ordered it at once to be produced, and Sheridan drove home about the time that her husband was returning to Richmond, weary of waiting for his absent debtor. But this kind of trickery could not always succeed without some knowledge of his creditor's character. In the case of Holloway, the lawyer, Sheridan took advantage of his wellknown vanity of his judgment of horse-flesh. Kelly gives the anecdote as authentic. He was walking one day with Sheridan, close to the church-yard of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, when, as ill-luck would have it, up comes Holloway on horseback, and in a furious rage, complains that he has called on Mr. Sheridan time and again in Hertford Street, and can never gain admittance. He proceeds to violent threats, and slangs his debtor roundly. Sheridan, cool as a whole bed of cucumbers, takes no notice of these attacks, but quietly exclaims, "What a beautiful creature you're riding, Holloway!" The lawyer's weak point was touched.

"You were speaking to me the other day about a horse for Mrs. Sheridan; now this would be a treasure for a lady." "Does he canter well?" asked Sheridan, with a look of bus iness.

"Like Pegasus himself."

"If that's the case, I shouldn't mind, Holloway, stretching a point for him. Do you mind showing me his paces ?"

"Not at all," replies the lawyer, only too happy to show off his own; and touching up the horse, put him to a quiet canter. The moment is not to be lost; the church-yard gate is at hand; Sheridan slips in, knowing that his mounted tormentor can not follow him, and there bursts into a roar of laughter, which is joined in by Kelly, but not by the returning Holloway.

But if he escaped an importunate lawyer once in a way like

ADVENTURES WITH BAILIFFS.

359

this, he required more ingenuity to get rid of the limbs of the law, when they came, as they did frequently in his later years. It was the fashionable thing in by-gone novels of the "Pelham" school, and even in more recent comedies, to introduce a welldressed sheriff's officer at a dinner-party or ball, and take him through a variety of predicaments, ending, at length, in the revelation of his real character; and probably some such scene is still enacted from time to time in the houses of the extravagant but Sheridan's adventures with bailiffs seem to have excited more attention. In the midst of his difficulties he never ceased to entertain his friends, and "why should he not do so, since he had not to pay?" "Pay your bills, sir? what a shameful waste of money!" he once said. Thus, one day a young friend was met by him and taken back to dinner, "quite in a quiet way, just to meet a very old friend of mine, a man of great talent, and most charming companion." When they arrived they found "the old friend" already installed, and presenting a somewhat unpolished appearance, which the young man explained to himself by supposing him to be a genius of somewhat low extraction. His habits at dinner, the eager look, the free use of his knife, and so forth, were all accounted for in the same way, but that he was a genius of no slight distinction was clear from the deep respect and attention with which Sheridan listened to his slightest remarks, and asked his opinion on English poetry. Meanwhile Sheridan and the servant between them plied the genius very liberally with wine; and the former, rising, made him a complimentary speech on his critical powers, while the young guest, who had heard nothing from his lips but the commonest platitudes in very bad English, grew more and more amused. The wine told in time, the "genius" sang songs which were more Saxon than delicate, talked loud, clapped his host on the shoulder, and at last rolled fairly under the table. "Now," said Sheridan, quite calmly to his young friend, "we will go up stairs; and, Jack" (to his servant) "take that man's hat and give him to the watch." He then explained in the same calm tone, that this was a bailiff of whose company he was growing rather tired, and wanted to be rid.

But his finest tricks were undoubtedly those by which he turned, harlequin-like, a creditor into a lender. This was done by sheer force of persuasion, by assuming a lofty indignation, or by putting forth his claims to mercy with the most touching eloquence, over which he would laugh heartily when his point was gained. He was often compelled to do this during his theatrical management, when a troublesome creditor might have interfered with the success of the establishment.