"Harold, you are a spendthrift and a rake, and are bringing up your son
the same."

I object, of course, to his terms; but since he foresaw that my habits
would be expensive, it is to be regretted that he did not make suitable
provision for their indulgence.

He did not, however, do so. Persons of low-breeding never can comprehend
their duties to the more refined.

The respective dusts of my father and grandfather were consigned to the
tomb the same week, and it was found that my mother's property had all
melted away, as--allow me a poetical figure--ice-cream melts between the
lips of beauty heated after the German.

Yes,--all was gone, except a small pittance in the form of an annuity. I
will not state the ridiculously trifling amount. I have seen more
than our whole annual income lost by a single turn of a card at the
establishment of the late Mr. P. Hearn, and also in private circles.

Something must be done. Otherwise, that deprivation of the luxuries of
life which to the aristocratic is starvation.

I stated my plans to my mother. They were based in part upon my
well-known pecuniary success at billiards--I need not say that I prefer
the push game, as requiring no expenditure of muscular force. They were
also based in part upon my intimacy with a distinguished operator in
Wall Street. Our capital would infallibly have been quadrupled,--what
do I say? decupled, centupled, in a short space of time.

My mother is a good, faithful creature. She looks up to me as a Bratley
should to a Chylde. She appreciates the honor my father did her by his
marriage, and I by my birth. I have frequently remarked a touching
fidelity of these persons of the lower classes of society toward those
of higher rank.

"I would make any sacrifice in the world," she said, "to help you, my
dear A---"

"Hush!" I cried.

I have suppressed my first name as unmelodious and connecting me too
much with a religious persuasion meritorious for its wealth alone. Need
I say that I refer to the faith of the Rothschild?

"All that I have is yours, my dear Bratley," continued my mother.

Quite touching! was it not? I was so charmed, that I mentally promised
her a new silk when she went into half-mourning, and asked her to go
with me to the opera as soon as she got over that feeble tendency to
tears which kept her eyes red and unpresentable.

"I would gladly aid you," the simple-hearted creature said, "in any
attempt to make your fortune in an ho