was generally pretty successful: indeed, if he had received
all the money that was owed to him, he might have come out of prison
and paid his creditors twenty shillings in the pound--that is, if he had
been minded to do so. But there is no use in examining into that point
too closely, for the fact is, young Fipkin only paid him forty pounds
out of seven hundred, for which he gave him I.O.U.'s; Algernon Deuceace
not only did not pay him three hundred and twenty which he lost at blind
hookey, but actually borrowed seven and sixpence in money from Walker,
which has never been repaid to this day; and Lord Doublequits actually
lost nineteen thousand pounds to him at heads and tails, which he never
paid, pleading drunkenness and his minority. The reader may recollect a
paragraph which went the round of the papers entitled--

"Affair of honour in the Fleet Prison.--Yesterday morning (behind the
pump in the second court) Lord D-bl-qu-ts and Captain H-w-rd W-lk-r (a
near relative, we understand, of his Grace the Duke of N-rf-lk) had
a hostile meeting and exchanged two shots. These two young sprigs of
nobility were attended to the ground by Major Flush, who, by the way,
is FLUSH no longer, and Captain Pam, late of the ---- Dragoons. Play is
said to have been the cause of the quarrel, and the gallant Captain is
reported to have handled the noble lord's nose rather roughly at one
stage of the transactions."

When Morgiana at "Sadler's Wells" heard these news, she was ready to
faint with terror; and rushed to the Fleet Prison, and embraced her lord
and master with her usual expansion and fits of tears: very much to that
gentleman's annoyance, who happened to be in company with Pain and Flush
at the time, and did not care that his handsome wife should be seen
too much in the dubious precincts of the Fleet. He had at least so much
shame about him, and had always rejected her entreaties to be allowed to
inhabit the prison with him.

"It is enough," would he say, casting his eyes heavenward, and with a
most lugubrious countenance--"it is enough, Morgiana, that _I_ should
suffer, even though your thoughtlessness has been the cause of my ruin.
But enough of THAT! I will not rebuke you for faults for which I know
you are now repentant; and I never could bear to see you in the midst
of the miseries of this horrible place. Remain at home with your mother,
and let me drag on the weary days here alone. If you can get me any more
of that pal