Before one year had passed over the respectable heads of our notable Banking-House, Allcraft was involved in a net of perplexity, from which it required all the acuteness of his apprehending mind to work out a mode of extrication.  Augustus Brammel continued abroad, spending his money, and drawing upon the house, with the impudent recklessness which we have already seen to be a prime ingredient in his character.  He did not condescend to communicate with his partners, or to give them any information touching his whereabouts, except such as might be gathered from his cheques, which came, week after week, with alarming punctuality, for sums as startling.  From this one source of misery, where was a promise or a chance of a final rescue?  Michael saw none.  What if he refused to cash his partner’s drafts?  What if he permitted them to find their way back, as best they might, through the various channels by which they had travelled on their previous journey—­dishonoured and disgraced?  Who but himself would be the loser by the game?  Such a refusal would lead to quick enquiry—­enquiry to information—­information to want of confidence and speedy ruin.  What reliance could repose upon a house, divided against itself—­not safe from the extravagance and pillage of its own members?  The public eye, ever watchful and timid, waits scarcely for the show of danger to take alarm and withdraw its favour.  Michael shrunk from the bare conception of an act of violence.  It was more agreeable, in an hour of self-collectedness, to devise a remedy, which, if it did not cure the disease, helped at least to cicatrize the immediate wounds.  He looked from Brammel to Brammel’s father for indemnification.  And the old man was in truth a rare temptation.  Fond, pitiable father of a false and bloodless child! doting, when others would have hated, loving his prodigal with a more anxious fondness as his ingratitude grew baser—­as the claims upon a parent’s heart dwindled more and more away.  The grey-haired man was a girl in tenderness and sensibility.  He remembered the mother of the wayward child, and the pains she had taken to misuse and spoil her only boy; his own conduct returned to him in the shape of heavy reproaches, and he could not forget, or call to mind without remorse, the smiles of encouragement he had given, the flattering approbation he had bestowed when true love, justice, duty, mercy, all called loudly for rebuke, restraint, wholesome correction, solemn chastisement.  Could he be conscious of all this, and not excuse the unsteady youth—­accuse himself?  It was he who deserved punishment—­not the sufferer with his calamities imposed upon him by his erring sire.  He was ready to receive his punishment.  Oh, would that at any cost—­at any expense of bodily and mental suffering, he could secure his child from further sorrow and from deeper degradation!  To such a heart and mind, Michael might well carry his complaints with some expectation of sympathy and reimbursement.  Aggrieved as he was, he did not fail to paint his disappointment and sense of injury in the strongest colours; but blacker than all—­and he was capable of such a task, he pictured the gross deception of which he had so cruelly been made the subject.