ly of _honour_, who
would have paraded and shot him, had he presumed to doubt their
word, but made no scruple of genteelly picking his pocket. He had
been duped by designing women, spunged upon by false friends,
pillaged by unprincipled tradesmen. He never thought of making a
calculation--except on a horse-race, and then he was generally
wrong,--or of looking at an account, or keeping one; but, when he
wanted money, and his banker wrote him word he had overdrawn, he just
sent his autograph to his stockbroker, prefixing the words, "Sell five
hundred, or a thousand," as the case might be. For some time these
laconic mandates were obeyed without remark, but at last, towards the
close of the London season, the broker, the highly respectable Mr
Cashup, of Change Alley, called upon his young client, whose father he
had known for many years, and ventured a gentle remonstrance on such
an alarming consumption of capital. Frank affected to laugh at the old
gentleman's caution, and told an excellent story that evening, after a
roaring supper, about the square-toed cit, the wise man of the East,
who made a pilgrimage to St James's, to preach a sermon on frugality.
Nevertheless, the prodigal was startled by the statements of the man
of business. He was unaware how deeply he had dipped into his
principal, and felt something like alarm upon discovering that he had
got through more than half his small fortune. This, in little more
than a year! For a moment he felt inclined to reform, abandon
dissipation, and apply to some profession. But the impulse was only
momentary. How could he, the gay Frank Oakley, the flower of fashion,
and admiration of the town (so at least he thought himself,) bend his
proud spirit to pore over parchments in a barrister's chambers, or to
smoke British Havanas, and spit over the bridge of a country town, as
ensign in a marching regiment? Was he to read himself blind at
college, to find himself a curate at thirty, with a hundred a-year,
and a breeding wife? Or was he to go to India, to get shot by Sikhs,
or carried off by a jungle fever? Forbid it, heaven! What would Slam
and Martingale, and Mademoiselle Entrechat, and all his fast and
fashionable acquaintances, male and female, say to such declension?
The thought was overwhelming, and thereupon Oakley resolved to give up
all idea of earning an honest living, to "drown care," "d-- the
consequences," and act up to the maxim he had frequently professed,
when the