ches down a capitalist, at three or six months, for a cool hundred
or a round thousand; just as a Scrope drops over a stag at ten, or a
Gordon Cumming a monstrous male elephant at a hundred paces.

As I before observed, my connection especially lies among the
improvident--among those who will be ruined--who are being ruined--and
who have been ruined. To the last class belongs Francis Fisherton, once
a gentleman, now without a shilling or a principle; but rich in
mother-wit--in fact, a _farceur_, after Paul de Kock's own heart. Having
in by-gone days been one of my willing victims, he occasionally finds
pleasure and profit in guiding others through the gate he frequented, as
long as able to pay the tolls. In truth, he is what is called a
"discount agent."

One day I received a note from him, to say that he would call on me at
three o'clock the next day to introduce a lady of family, who wanted a
bill "done" for one hundred pounds. So ordinary a transaction merely
needed a memorandum in my diary, "Tuesday, 3 p.m.; F.F., L100 Bill." The
hour came and passed; but no Frank, which was strange--because every one
must have observed, that, however dilatory people are in paying, they are
wonderfully punctual when they expect to receive money.

At five o'clock, in rushed my Jackall. His story, disentangled from
oaths and ejaculations, amounted to this:--In answer to one of the
advertisements he occasionally addresses "To the Embarrassed," in the
columns of the "Times," he received a note from a lady, who said she was
anxious to get a "bill done"--the acceptance of a well-known man of rank
and fashion. A correspondence was opened, and an appointment made. At the
hour fixed, neatly shaved, brushed, gloved, booted--the revival, in
short, of that high-bred Frank Fisherton who was so famous

"In his hot youth, when Crockford's was the thing."

glowing with only one glass of brandy, "just to steady his nerves," he
met the lady at a West-End pastry-cook's.

After a few words (for all the material questions had been settled by
correspondence) she stepped into a brougham, and invited Frank to take a
seat beside her. Elated with a compliment of late years so rare, he
commenced planning the orgies which were to reward him for weeks of
enforced fasting, when the coachman, reverentially touching his hat,
looked down from his seat for orders.

"To ninety-nine, George Street, St. James," cried Fisherton, in his
loudest tones.

In an ins