s
own pocket. In all probability, his prediction would have been verified,
had not an unforeseen accident in a moment overwhelmed the barque of his
interest at court.

Meanwhile, this short gleam of good fortune recalled the ideas of pride
and ambition which he had formerly cherished. His countenance was again
lifted up, his good-humour retrieved, and his mien reexalted. Indeed, he
began to be considered as a rising man by his fellow-dependents, who saw
the particular notice with which he was favoured at the public levee;
and some of them, for that reason, were at pains to court his good
graces. He no longer shunned his former intimates, with whom a good
part of his fortune had been spent, but made up to them in all places of
public resort, with the same ease and familiarity as he had been used
to express, and even re-embarked in some of their excesses, upon the
strength of his sanguine expectation. Cadwallader and he renewed
their consultations in the court of ridicule; and divers exploits were
achieved, to the confusion of those who had "sailed into the north of
their displeasure."

But these enjoyments were soon interrupted by a misfortune equally fatal
and unexpected. His noble patron was seized with an apoplectic fit, from
which he was recovered by the physicians, that they might despatch him
according to rule, and in two months after they were called, he went the
way of all flesh. Peregrine was very much afflicted at this event, not
only on account of his friendship for the deceased, to whom he thought
himself under many and great obligations, but also because he feared
that his own interest would suffer a severe shock, by the removal of
this nobleman, whom he considered as its chief support. He put himself
therefore in mourning, out of regard to the memory of his departed
friend, and exhibited genuine marks of sorrow and concern, though he
had in reality more cause to grieve than he as yet imagined. When
quarter-day came about, he applied to the steward of his lordship's heir
for the interest of his money, as usual; and the reader will readily
own he had some reason to be surprised, when he was told he had no claim
either to principal or interest. True it is, the manager talked very
civilly as well as sensibly on the subject. "Your appearance, sir," said
he to Pickle, "screens you from all suspicion of an intended fraud; but
the mortgage upon those lands you mention was granted to another person
many years befo