rse of my calling--I am not very
deficient in assurance myself--but this actually took away my breath.

"Really, madam," I answered, "you pay a very ill-compliment to my gray
hairs, and would fain make me a very ill return for the service I have
done you, when you ask me to lend a hundred pounds to a young lady who
owns to having forged to the extent of one thousand two hundred pounds,
and to owing eight hundred pounds besides. I wished to save a personage
of your years and position from a disgraceful career; but I am too good a
trustee for my children to lend money to anybody in such a dangerous
position as yourself."

"Oh!" she answered, quite unabashed, without a trace of the fearful,
tender pleading of the previous week's interview--quite as if I had been
an accomplice, "I can give you excellent security."

"That alters the case; I can lend any amount on good security."

"Well, sir, I can get the acceptance of three friends of ample means"

"Do you mean to tell me, Miss Snape, that you will write down the names
of three parties who will accept a bill for one hundred pounds for you?"

Yes, she could, and did actually write down the names of three
distinguished men. Now I knew for certain, that not one of those noblemen
would have put his name to a bill on any account whatever for his dearest
friend; but, in her unabashed self-confidence, she thought of passing
another forgery _on me_. I closed the conference by saying, "I cannot
assist you;" and she retired with the air of an injured person. In the
course of a few days, I heard from Mr. Axminster, that his liability of
one hundred pounds had been duly honored.

In my active and exciting life, one day extinguishes the recollection
of the events of the preceding day; and, for a time, I thought no more
about the fashionable forger. I had taken it for granted that,
heartily frightened, although not repenting, she had paused in her
felonious pursuits.

My business one day led me to the establishment of one of the most
wealthy and respectable legal firms in the city, where I am well known,
and, I believe, valued; for at all times I am most politely, I may say,
most cordially received. Mutual profits create a wonderful freemasonry
between those who have not any other sympathy or sentiment. Politics,
religion, morality, difference of rank, are all equalized and
republicanized by the division of an account. No sooner had I entered the
_sanctum_, than the senior partne