perhaps, that I acted rashly, and should have sought
temporary assistance from friends before proceeding to such
extremities. But the very few persons who might have been disposed
to help me, I had long since neglected for the society of the
well-dressed thieves by whom I had been so pitilessly fleeced. And had
it been otherwise, I knew not how to beg or borrow. My practice had
been in giving and lending. The first thing I did, when installed in
my _sixieme_ at twenty francs a-month, was to write to my uncle in
England, informing him, without entering into details, of the knavery
of which I had been victim, expressing my penitence for past follies,
and my desire to atone them by a life of industry. I craved his
advice as to the course I should adopt, declared a preference for the
military profession, and entreated, as the greatest of favours, and
the only one I should ever ask of him, that he would procure me a
commission, either in the British service or Indian army. I got an
answer by return of post, and, before opening it, augured well from
such promptitude. Its contents bitterly disappointed me. My uncle's
agent informed me, by his employer's command, that Mr Oakley, of
Oakley Manor, was not disposed to take any notice of a nephew who had
disgraced him by extravagance and evil courses, and that any future
letters from me would be totally disregarded. I felt that I deserved
this; but yet I had hoped kinder words from my dead father's elder
brother. The trifling assistance I asked would hardly have been missed
out of his unencumbered income of ten thousand a-year. This was my
first advertisement of the wide difference that sometimes exists
between relatives and friends. Gradually I gathered experience, paid
for, in advance, at a heavy rate.

"Of course, I did not dream of renewing an application thus cruelly
repulsed, but resolved to rely on myself alone, and to find some
occupation, however humble, sufficient for my subsistence. I had no
idea, until I tried, of the immense difficulty of procuring such
occupation. Master of no trade or handicraft, I knew not which way to
turn, or what species of employment to seek. I was a good swordsman,
and once I had a vague notion of teaching fencing; but even had I
had the means to establish myself, the profession was already
over-stocked; and not a regiment of the Paris garrison but could turn
out a score of _prevots_ to button me six times for my once. I could
ride, which qua