A bailiff (Mr Fixem, centre) calls on an affluent man (left) to enforce payment of a debt, assisted by his assistant (Bung, right). Etching by George Cruikshank.

"Cruikshank shows the jolly resident of the house as possessing every indication of affluence … The broker's man (right) gratefully accepts the coins from his employer, the sly-faced Mr. Fixem, as the man whom they have come to dun before breakfast laughs good-naturedly. The elegant furnishings of the small dining-room are entirely Cruikshank's invention, but certainly suggest that the master of the house has good taste and aspires to be a gentleman (like John Dickens), if indeed he is not one, merely fallen upon hard times. The seventeenth-century family portraits, the bust of the ancient philosopher above the cabinet, the fashionable Regency chairs with striped fabric, the elegantly dressed breakfast table with its large silver taureen, the ornately framed mirror over the mantelpiece, marble-faced fireplace and brass fender, the highly patterned Turkey carpet, and the neoclassical plaster cornice all suggest comfort, discernment, and class — … the laughing master of the house in his ruffled shirt, silk dressing-gown, waistcoat, slippers, and stirrup trousers contrasts "Mr. Smith" and his employee, Bung, who both wear less fashionable attire, breeches and stockings, although sharp-faced, balding Fixem has a fob and respectable top-hat."— Philip V. Allingham, loc. cit.