unguarded frankness they spoke of
their several difficulties, their stories presented one uniform
feature-reckless expenditure and wasteful extravagance, with limited
means and encumbered fortunes. They had passed through every phase of
borrowing, every mode of raising money, and were now reduced to the last
rung of the ladder of expediency, to become the prey of the usurer, who
meted out to them a few more months of extravagance at the cost of many
a future year of sorrow and repining.

I was beginning to grow impatient as the door gently opened, and I saw
my friend, as he emerged from the back drawing-room. Without losing a
moment's time I joined him. We descended the stairs together, and walked
out into the street.

'Are you fond of pickled herrings, Jack?' said O'Grady, as he took my
arm.

'Pickled herrings! Why, what do you mean?'

'Probably,' resumed he, in the same dry tone of voice, 'you prefer ash
bark, or asafetida?'

'Why, I can't say.'

'Ah, my boy, you 're difficult to please, then. What do you say to whale
oil and Welsh wigs?'

'Confound me if I understand you!'

'Nothing more easy after all, for of each of these commodities I 'm now
a possessor to the amount of some two hundred and twenty pounds. You
look surprised, but such is the nature of our transactions here; and for
my bill of five hundred, payable in six months, I have become a general
merchant to the extent I've told you, not to mention paying eighty
more for a certain gig and horse, popularly known in this city as the
discount dennet. This,' continued he with a sigh, 'is about the tenth
time I've been the owner of that vile conveyance; for you must know
whenever Fagan advances a good round sum he always insists upon
something of this kind forming part of it, and thus, according to the
figure of your loan, you may drive from his door in anything, from a
wheel-barrow to a stage-coach. As for the discount dennet, it is as well
known as the black-cart that conveys the prisoners to Newgate, and the
reputation of him who travels in either is pretty much on a par. From
the crank of the rusty springs, to the limping amble of the malicious
old black beast in the shafts, the whole thing has a look of beggary
about it. Every jingle of the ragged harness seems to whisper in your
ear, "Fifty per cent."; and drive which way you will, it is impossible
to get free of the notion that you're not trotting along the road to
ruin. To have been seen in it o