It had been obtained from A--, and during the morning returned to him in payment of Ellis's loan.
So much accomplished, Ellis turned his thoughts towards the ways and means for raising the seven hundred dollars yet required for the day's business.

By twelve o'clock all of his borrowed money was returned; but his notes still remained in bank.

In view of the difficulties yet to be surmounted, he felt that he had erred in not making it the first business of the day to take up his notes, and thus get beyond the danger of protest.

But it was too late now for regrets to be of any avail.

Four hundred dollars must come from some quarter, or ruin was certain.
But from whence was aid to come?
He had not spent an idle moment since he came to his store in the morning, and had so fully passed over the limits within which his resources lay, that little ground yet remained to be broken, and the promise of that was small.
While Ellis stood meditating, in much perplexity of mind, what step next to take, a man entered his store, and, approaching him, read aloud from a paper which he drew from his pocket, a summons to answer before an alderman in the case of Carlton, who had brought separate suits on his due-bills, each being for an amount less than one hundred dollars.
"Very well, I will attend to it," said Ellis in a voice of assumed calmness, and the officer retired.
Slowly seating himself in a chair that stood by a low writing-desk, the unhappy man tried to compose his thoughts, in order that he might see precisely in what position this new move would place him.