unds in a single
night from as many of the first ladies of England when ringlets were in
fashion. The introduction of bands, he says, made a difference of two
thousand pounds a year in his income; and if there is one thing in the
world he hates and despises, it is a Madonna. "I'm not," says he, "a
tradesman--I'm a HARTIST" (Mr. Eglantine was born in London)--"I'm a
hartist; and show me a fine 'ead of air, and I'll dress it for nothink."
He vows that it was his way of dressing Mademoiselle Sontag's hair, that
caused the count her husband to fall in love with her; and he has a lock
of it in a brooch, and says it was the finest head he ever saw, except
one, and that was Morgiana Crump's.

With his genius and his position in the profession, how comes it, then,
that Mr. Eglantine was not a man of fortune, as many a less clever has
been? If the truth must be told, he loved pleasure, and was in the hands
of the Jews. He had been in business twenty years: he had borrowed a
thousand pounds to purchase his stock and shop; and he calculated that
he had paid upwards of twenty thousand pounds for the use of the one
thousand, which was still as much due as on the first day when he
entered business. He could show that he had received a thousand dozen
of champagne from the disinterested money-dealers with whom he usually
negotiated his paper. He had pictures all over his "studios," which had
been purchased in the same bargains. If he sold his goods at an enormous
price, he paid for them at a rate almost equally exorbitant. There
was not an article in his shop but came to him through his Israelite
providers; and in the very front shop itself sat a gentleman who was the
nominee of one of them, and who was called Mr. Mossrose. He was there to
superintend the cash account, and to see that certain instalments were
paid to his principals, according to certain agreements entered into
between Mr. Eglantine and them.

Having that sort of opinion of Mr. Mossrose which Damocles may have had
of the sword which hung over his head, of course Mr. Eglantine hated his
foreman profoundly. "HE an artist," would the former gentleman exclaim;
"why, he's only a disguised bailiff! Mossrose indeed! The chap's name's
Amos, and he sold oranges before he came here." Mr. Mossrose, on his
side, utterly despised Mr. Eglantine, and looked forward to the day when
he would become the proprietor of the shop, and take Eglantine for a
foreman; and then it would HIS turn