it pleasant for members of a proud aristocracy to condescend from
their high estate to fawn, feign, flatter; to affect even mirthful
familiarity in order to gain my good-will. I am no Shylock. No client
can accuse me of desiring either his flesh or his blood. Sentimental
vengeance is no item in my stock in trade. Gold and bank-notes satisfy
my "rage;" or, if need be, a good mortgage. Far from seeking revenge,
the worst defaulter I ever had dealings with cannot deny that I am
always willing to accept a good post-obit.

I say again, I am daily brought in contact with all ranks of society,
from the poverty-stricken patentee to the peer; and I am no more
surprised at receiving an application from a duchess than from a pet
opera-dancer. In my ante-room wait, at this moment, a crowd of
borrowers. Among the men, beardless folly and mustachioed craft are most
prominent: there is a handsome young fellow, with an elaborate cane and
wonderfully vacant countenance, who is anticipating, in feeble follies,
an estate that has been in the possession of his ancestors since the
reign of Henry the Eighth. There is a hairy, high-nosed, broken-down
nondescript, in appearance something between a horse-dealer and a
pugilist. He is an old Etonian. Five years ago he drove his
four-in-hand; he is now waiting to beg a sovereign, having been just
discharged from the Insolvent Court, for the second time. Among the
women, a pretty actress, who, a few years since, looked forward to a
supper of steak and onions, with bottled stout, on a Saturday night, as
a great treat, now finds one hundred pounds a month insufficient to pay
her wine-merchant and her confectioner. I am obliged to deal with each
case according to its peculiarities. Genuine undeserved Ruin seldom
knocks at my door. Mine is a perpetual battle with people who imbibe
trickery at the same rate as they dissolve their fortunes. I am a hard
man, of course. I should not be fit for my pursuit if I were not; but
when, by a remote chance, honest misfortune pays me a visit, as
Rothschilds amused himself at times by giving a beggar a guinea, so I
occasionally treat myself to the luxury of doing a kind action. My
favorite subjects for this unnatural generosity, are the very young, or
the poor, innocent, helpless people, who are unfit for the war of life.
Many among my clients (especially those tempered in the "ice-book" of
fashion and high-life--polished and passionless) would be too much for
me, if