ve me sixpence. Rather hard lines that, after my
taking the trouble to come over here and hunt him up."

There was one fact that Mr. Nowell the younger seemed inclined to ignore
in the course of these reflections; and that was the fact that he had not
left America until he had completely used up that country as a field for
commercial enterprise, and had indeed made his name so far notorious in
connection with numerous shady transactions as to leave no course open to
him except a speedy departure. Since his coming to England he had lived
entirely on credit; and, beyond the fine clothes he wore and the contents
of his two portmanteaus, he possessed nothing in the world. It was quite
true that he had done very well in New York; but his well-being had been
secured at the cost of other people; and after having started some
half-dozen speculations, and living extravagantly upon the funds of his
victims, he was now as poor as he had been when he left Belgium for
America, the commission-agent of a house in the iron trade. In this
position he might have prospered in a moderate way, and might have
profited by the expensive education which had given him nothing but showy
agreeable manners, had he been capable of steadiness and industry. But of
these virtues he was utterly deficient, possessing instead a genius for
that kind of swindling which keeps just upon the safe side of felony. He
had lived pleasantly enough, for many years, by the exercise of this
agreeable talent; so pleasantly indeed that he had troubled himself very
little about his chances of inheriting his father's savings. It was only
when he had exhausted all expedients for making money on "the other side"
that he turned his thoughts in the direction of Queen Anne's Court, and
began to speculate upon the probability of Jacob Nowell's good graces
being worth the trouble of cultivation. The prospectuses which he had
shown his father were mere waste paper, the useless surplus stationery
remaining from a scheme that had failed to enlist the sympathies of a
Transatlantic public. But he fancied that his only chance with the old
man lay in an assumption of prosperity; so he carried matters with a high
hand throughout the business, and swaggered in the little dusky parlour
behind the shop just as he had swaggered on New-York Broadway or at
Delmonico's in the heyday of his commercial success.

He called at Mr. Medler's office the day after Jacob Nowell's will had
been executed