of him gorging it in the
flurried alley of the London crowd.

'Money goes,' I remarked.

'That is the general experience of the nature of money,' said my father
freshly; 'but nevertheless you will be surprised to find how
extraordinarily few are the people to make allowance for particular
cases. It plays the trick with everybody, and almost nobody lets it stand
as a plea for the individual. Here is Jorian, and you, my son, and
perhaps your aunt Dorothy, and upon my word, I think I have numbered all
I know--or, ay, Sukey Sampleman, I should not omit her in an honourable
list--and that makes positively all I know who would commiserate a man
touched on the shoulder by a sheriff's officer--not that such an
indignity is any longer done to me.'

'I hope we have seen the last of Shylock's great-grandnephew,' said I
emphatically.

'Merely to give you the instance, Richie. Ay! I hope so, I hope so! But
it is the nature of money that you never can tell if the boarding's
sound, once be dependent upon it. But this is talk for tradesmen.'
Thinking it so myself, I had not attempted to discover the source of my
father's income. Such as it was, it was paid half-yearly, and spent
within a month of the receipt, for the most signal proof possible of its
shameful insufficiency. Thus ten months of the year at least he lived
protesting, and many with him, compulsorily. For two months he was a
brilliant man. I penetrated his mystery enough to abstain from
questioning him, and enough to determine that on my coming of age he
should cease to be a pensioner, petitioner, and adventurer. He aimed at a
manifest absurdity.

In the meantime, after the lesson I had received as to the nature of
money, I saw with some alarm my father preparing to dig a great pit for
it. He had no doubt performed wonders. Despite of scandal and tattle, and
the deadly report of a penniless fortune-hunter having fascinated the
young heiress, he commanded an entrance to the receptions of both the
rival ladies dominant. These ladies, Lady Wilts and Lady Denewdney, who
moved each in her select half-circle, and could heretofore be induced by
none to meet in a common centre, had pledged themselves to honour with
their presence a ball he proposed to give to the choice world here
assembled on a certain illuminated day of the calendar.

'So I have now possession of Bath, Richie,' said he, twinkling to
propitiate me, lest I should suspect him of valuing his achievements
hig