the cost of suit, and whether I
should wait upon him at his Levee for a receipt. On the which he, still
with the fear of a cudgelling before his eyes, sends me down a Receipt
in Full, _and the Money back to boot_, begging me to trouble myself in
no way about the lawyer; which, I promise you, I did not. And so an end
of this troublesome acquaintance,--a profitable one enough to me while
it lasted. As for Miss Jenny, her Behaviour soon became as light as her
name. I have heard that she got into trouble about a Spanish Merchant
that was flung down stairs and nigh killed, and that but for the Favour
of Justice Cogwell, who had a hankering for her, 'twould have been a
Court-Job. Afterwards I learnt that she had been seen beating Hemp in
Bridewell in a satin sack laced with silver; and I warrant that she was
fain to cry, "Knock! oh, good Sir Robert, knock!" many a time before the
Blue-coated Beadles on court day had done swingeing of her.

There are certain periods in the life even of the most fortunate man
when his Luck is at a desperately low ebb,--when everything seems to go
amiss with him,--when nothing that he can turn his hand to prospers,--when
friends desert him, and the companions of his sunshiny days chide him
for not having made better use of his opportunities,--when, Do what he
will, he cannot avert the Black Storm,--when Ruin seems impending, and
Catastrophe is on the cards,--when he is Down, in a word, and the
despiteful are getting ready to gibe at him in his Misfortune, and to
administer unto him the last Kick. These times of Trial and Bitter
Travail ofttimes strike one who has just attained Middle age,--the
Halfway-House of Life; and then, 'tis the merest chance in the world
whether he will be enabled to pick himself up again, or be condemned for
evermore to poverty and contumely,--to the portion of weeds and out-worn
faces. I do confess that about this period of my career things went very
badly with me, and that I was grievously hard-driven, not alone to make
both ends meet, but to discover anything that could have its ending in a
Meal of Victuals. I have heard that some of the greatest Prelates,
Statesmen, Painters, Captains, and Merchants--I speak not of Poets, for
it is their eternal portion, seemingly, to be born, to live, and to Die
Poor--have suffered the like straits at some time or another of their
lives. Many times, however, have I put it on record in these pages, that
Despair and I were never Bedfel