becomes powerful and prosperous. But this accursed
revolution among our neighbors the French has quite unsettled opinions,
and, alas! property is in perpetual danger!"

"Sorry am I to say, I feel it to be so in every nerve of my body, Sir
Joseph."

"We must unite and defend ourselves, Mr. Goldencalf, else both you and
I, men warm enough and substantial enough at present, will be in the
ditch. Do you not see that we are in actual danger of a division of
property?"

"God forbid!"

"Yes, sir, our sacred property is in danger!"

Here Sir Joseph shook my father cordially by the hand and withdrew. I
find, by a memorandum among the papers of my deceased ancestor, that he
paid the broker of Sir Joseph, that day month, sixty-two thousand seven
hundred and twelve pounds difference (as bull and bear), owing to the
fact of the knight having got some secret information through a clerk in
one of the offices; an advantage that enabled him, in this instance, at
least, to make a better bargain than one who was generally allowed to be
among the shrewdest speculators on 'Change.

My mind was of a nature to be considerably exercised (as the pious
purists express it), by becoming the depository of sentiments so
diametrically opposed to each other as those of Dr. Etherington and
those of Sir Joseph Job. On the one side, I was taught the degradation
of birth; on the other, the dangers of property. Anna was usually
my confidant, but on this subject I was tongue-tied, for I dared not
confess that I had overheard the discourse with her father, and I was
compelled to digest the contradictory doctrines by myself in the best
manner I could.

CHAPTER IV. SHOWING THE UPS AND DOWNS, THE HOPES AND FEARS, AND THE
VAGARIES OF LOVE, SOME VIEWS OF DEATH, AND AN ACCOUNT OF AN INHERITANCE.

From my twentieth to my twenty-third year no event occurred of any
great moment. The day I became of age my father settled on me a regular
allowance of a thousand a year, and I make no doubt I should have spent
my time much as other young men had it not been for the peculiarity
of my birth, which I now began to see was wanting in a few of the
requisites to carry me successfully through a struggle for place with
a certain portion of what is called the great world. While most were
anxious to trace themselves into obscurity, there was a singular
reluctance to effecting the object as clearly and as distinctly as
it was in my power to do. From all which, as w