 for the bitterness of Osborne's opposition.
    When one man has been under very remarkable obligations to another, with
whom he subsequently quarrels, a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of
the former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger would be. To account for
your own hard-heartedness and ingratitude in such a case, you are bound to prove
the other party's crime. It is not that you are selfish, brutal, and angry at
the failure of a speculation - no, no - it is that your partner has led you into
it by the basest treachery and with the most sinister motives. From a mere sense
of consistency, a persecutor is bound to show that the fallen man is a villain -
otherwise he, the persecutor, is a wretch himself.
    And as a general rule, which may make all creditors who are inclined to be
severe pretty comfortable in their minds, no men embarrassed are altogether
honest, very likely. They conceal something; they exaggerate chances of good
luck; hide away the real state of affairs; say that things are flourishing when
they are hopeless; keep a smiling face (a dreary smile it is) upon the verge of
bankruptcy - are ready to lay hold of any pretext for delay or of any money, so
as to stave off the inevitable ruin a few days longer. »Down with such
dishonesty,« says the creditor in triumph, and reviles his sinking enemy. »You
fool, why do you catch at a straw?« calm good sense says to the man that is
drowning. »You villain, why do you shrink from plunging into the irretrievable
Gazette?« says prosperity to the poor devil battling in that black gulf. Who has
not remarked the readiness with which the closest of friends and honestest of
men suspect and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out on money
matters? Everybody does it. Everybody is right, I suppose, and the world is a
rogue.
    Then Osborne had the intolerable sense of former benefits to goad and
irritate him: these are always a cause of hostility aggravated. Finally, he had
to break off the match between Sedley's daughter and his son; and as it had gone
very far indeed, and as the poor girl's happiness and perhaps character were
compromised, it was necessary to show the strongest reasons for the rupture, and
for John Osborne to prove John Sedley to be a very bad character indeed.
    At the meetings of creditors, then, he comported himself with a savageness
and scorn towards Sedley, which almost succeeded in breaking the
