nd carried on his
business in the same town with him--to pay off his mortgage; which he
being unable to do, or to obtain any body to advance the required amount
on the security of property which had then become so depreciated in
value, the sordid worshipper of mammon, though rolling in wealth, and
not spending one-tenth part of his income, and with neither wife nor
children to provide for, nor a soul on earth he cared a straw for, was
resolved, as he was technically pleased to term it, to sell up the
doctor forthwith; to accomplish which he commenced an action of
ejectment to recover the possession of the premises, though Job had
voluntarily offered to give them up to him, and also an action of
covenant for non-payment of the mortgage money, whilst at the same time
he filed his bill in Chancery to foreclose the mortgage; which combined
forces, legal and equitable, proved so awful a floorer to a sinking man,
that, in order to get clear of them, he was glad at the very outset, not
only to give up all claim to the property, but even to consent to pay
L100 out of his own pocket for the costs said to have been incurred in
thus depriving him of his possessions.

These costs proved an unceasing millstone about the unfortunate doctor's
neck. In order to pay them, he had been obliged to leave more just
demands undischarged; and thus he became involved in difficulties he
strove in vain to extricate himself from. Yet in spite of all this, Job
and his good little wife were a far happier couple than most of their
richer neighbours. The constant hope that things would soon begin to
take a more prosperous turn, reconciled them to their present
perplexities; there was but one drawback they considered to render their
bliss complete; and Job used to say, that he had never met with an
instance of a man who hadn't a drawback to perfect happiness in some
shape or other and that, take it for all in all, they had, thank God, a
pretty fair allowance of the world's comforts.

"So we have, my dear Job," said his pretty little wife Jessie, in reply
to a remark of this kind he had been just then making--"and only think
how far happier we are than most of the people around us. Only think of
Mr Belasco, who, with all his money and fine estates, is so unhappy,
that his family are in constant dread of his destroying himself."

"And poor Sir Charles Deacon," interposed Job, "a man so devotedly fond
of good eating and drinking as he is, and yet to be