in the fig
and sponge way, and more in the Zante currant line than any other firm in
the City.

Brough was a great man among the Dissenting connection, and you saw his
name for hundreds at the head of every charitable society patronised by
those good people. He had nine clerks residing at his office in Crutched
Friars; he would not take one without a certificate from the schoolmaster
and clergyman of his native place, strongly vouching for his morals and
doctrine; and the places were so run after, that he got a premium of four
or five hundred pounds with each young gent, whom he made to slave for
ten hours a day, and to whom in compensation he taught all the mysteries
of the Turkish business. He was a great man on 'Change, too; and our
young chaps used to hear from the stockbrokers' clerks (we commonly dined
together at the "Cock and Woolpack," a respectable house, where you get a
capital cut of meat, bread, vegetables, cheese, half a pint of porter,
and a penny to the waiter, for a shilling)--the young stockbrokers used
to tell us of immense bargains in Spanish, Greek, and Columbians, that
Brough made. Hoff had nothing to do with them, but stopped at home
minding exclusively the business of the house. He was a young chap, very
quiet and steady, of the Quaker persuasion, and had been taken into
partnership by Brough for a matter of thirty thousand pounds: and a very
good bargain too. I was told in the strictest confidence that the house
one year with another divided a good seven thousand pounds: of which
Brough had half, Hoff two-sixths, and the other sixth went to old Tudlow,
who had been Mr. Brough's clerk before the new partnership began. Tudlow
always went about very shabby, and we thought him an old miser. One of
our gents, Bob Swinney by name, used to say that Tudlow's share was all
nonsense, and that Brough had it all; but Bob was always too knowing by
half, used to wear a green cutaway coat, and had his free admission to
Covent Garden Theatre. He was always talking down at the shop, as we
called it (it wasn't a shop, but as splendid an office as any in
Cornhill)--he was always talking about Vestris and Miss Tree, and singing

"The bramble, the bramble,
The jolly jolly bramble!"

one of Charles Kemble's famous songs in "Maid Marian;" a play that was
all the rage then, taken from a famous story-book by one Peacock, a clerk
in the India House; and a precious good place he has too.

When Brough hea