your respected father assisted.'

'Well, never mind HIM,' said Jonas. 'He's dead, and there's no help for
it.'

'Dead, is he!' cried Tigg, 'Venerable old gentleman, is he dead! You're
very like him.'

Jonas received this compliment with anything but a good grace, perhaps
because of his own private sentiments in reference to the personal
appearance of his deceased parent; perhaps because he was not best
pleased to find that Montague and Tigg were one. That gentleman
perceived it, and tapping him familiarly on the sleeve, beckoned him
to the window. From this moment, Mr Montague's jocularity and flow of
spirits were remarkable.

'Do you find me at all changed since that time?' he asked. 'Speak
plainly.'

Jonas looked hard at his waistcoat and jewels; and said 'Rather, ecod!'

'Was I at all seedy in those days?' asked Montague.

'Precious seedy,' said Jonas.

Mr Montague pointed down into the street, where Bailey and the cab were
in attendance.

'Neat; perhaps dashing. Do you know whose it is?'

'No.'

'Mine. Do you like this room?'

'It must have cost a lot of money,' said Jonas.

'You're right. Mine too. Why don't you'--he whispered this, and nudged
him in the side with his elbow--'why don't you take premiums, instead of
paying 'em? That's what a man like you should do. Join us!'

Jonas stared at him in amazement.

'Is that a crowded street?' asked Montague, calling his attention to the
multitude without.

'Very,' said Jonas, only glancing at it, and immediately afterwards
looking at him again.

'There are printed calculations,' said his companion, 'which will
tell you pretty nearly how many people will pass up and down that
thoroughfare in the course of a day. I can tell you how many of 'em will
come in here, merely because they find this office here; knowing no more
about it than they do of the Pyramids. Ha, ha! Join us. You shall come
in cheap.'

Jonas looked at him harder and harder.

'I can tell you,' said Tigg in his ear, 'how many of 'em will buy
annuities, effect insurances, bring us their money in a hundred shapes
and ways, force it upon us, trust us as if we were the Mint; yet know no
more about us than you do of that crossing-sweeper at the corner. Not so
much. Ha, ha!'

Jonas gradually broke into a smile.

'Yah!' said Montague, giving him a pleasant thrust in the breast;
'you're too deep for us, you dog, or I wouldn't have told you. Dine with
me to-morrow, in Pall Mall!'

'I wi