"I feel quite flattered to be called your keeper." "It's all a lie," I said angrily, "about my coming home drunk, and all that." "I should rather hope it was," said my friend with a smile.
I was sufficiently uncomfortable, however, by the turn my fellow- lodgers' wit was taking.

Without meaning to deceive, I had somehow, in my story to Jack, omitted all reference to my own extravagances, and represented my dissipations more as contrivances to pass the time in my friend's absence than congenial pleasures.
"Rum thing, too," continued Horncastle, who evidently saw I was not liking it--"rum thing he's dropped those new ready-made togs of his and his flash watch-chain.

I wonder why--" "Because they're not paid for," said another.

"I know that, because I was in Shoddy's shop to-day, and he asked me to tell Batchelor the things were sold for ready money and no tick.

Do you hear that, Batchelor?
that's what he says, and you'd better attend to it, I can tell you." Why need I have got myself into a rage over a suit of ready-made clothes?
It was surely no crime to possess them; and if I was owing the amount it didn't follow I had anything to be ashamed of, as long as I paid in the end.