e of the next.

Whether this young gentleman (for he was but three-and-twenty) combined
with the miserly vice of an old man, any of the open-handed vices of
a young one, was a moot point; so very honourably did he keep his own
counsel. He was sensible of the value of appearances as an investment,
and liked to dress well; but he drove a bargain for every moveable about
him, from the coat on his back to the china on his breakfast-table;
and every bargain by representing somebody's ruin or somebody's loss,
acquired a peculiar charm for him. It was a part of his avarice to take,
within narrow bounds, long odds at races; if he won, he drove harder
bargains; if he lost, he half starved himself until next time. Why money
should be so precious to an Ass too dull and mean to exchange it for any
other satisfaction, is strange; but there is no animal so sure to get
laden with it, as the Ass who sees nothing written on the face of the
earth and sky but the three letters L. S. D.--not Luxury, Sensuality,
Dissoluteness, which they often stand for, but the three dry letters.
Your concentrated Fox is seldom comparable to your concentrated Ass in
money-breeding.

Fascination Fledgeby feigned to be a young gentleman living on his
means, but was known secretly to be a kind of outlaw in the bill-broking
line, and to put money out at high interest in various ways. His circle
of familiar acquaintance, from Mr Lammle round, all had a touch of the
outlaw, as to their rovings in the merry greenwood of Jobbery Forest,
lying on the outskirts of the Share-Market and the Stock Exchange.

'I suppose you, Lammle,' said Fledgeby, eating his bread and butter,
'always did go in for female society?'

'Always,' replied Lammle, glooming considerably under his late
treatment.

'Came natural to you, eh?' said Fledgeby.

'The sex were pleased to like me, sir,' said Lammle sulkily, but with
the air of a man who had not been able to help himself.

'Made a pretty good thing of marrying, didn't you?' asked Fledgeby.

The other smiled (an ugly smile), and tapped one tap upon his nose.

'My late governor made a mess of it,' said Fledgeby. 'But Geor--is the
right name Georgina or Georgiana?'

'Georgiana.'

'I was thinking yesterday, I didn't know there was such a name. I
thought it must end in ina.

'Why?'

'Why, you play--if you can--the Concertina, you know,' replied
Fledgeby, meditating very slowly. 'And you have--when you catch it--the
Scarlatin