r
enough that one which offers considerable prospect of advantage has
just presented itself on the confines of Persia. Think not, however,
that motives of lucre would have been sufficiently powerful to tempt
me to the East at the present moment. I may speculate, it is true,
but I should scarcely have undertaken the journey but for your pungent
words inciting me to attack the Persians. Doubt not that I will
attack them on the first opportunity. I thank you heartily for
putting me in mind of my duty. I have hitherto, to use your own
words, been too fond of money-getting, like all my countrymen. I am
much indebted to you; farewell! and may every prosperity await you.'

For some time after I had deciphered the epistle, I stood as if rooted to
the floor. I felt stunned--my last hope was gone; presently a feeling
arose in my mind--a feeling of self-reproach. Whom had I to blame but
myself for the departure of the Armenian? Would he have ever thought of
attacking the Persians had I not put the idea into his head? he had told
me in his epistle that he was indebted to me for the idea. But for that,
he might at the present moment have been in London, increasing his
fortune by his usual methods, and I might be commencing under his
auspices the translation of the Haik Esop, with the promise, no doubt, of
a considerable remuneration for my trouble; or I might be taking a seat
opposite the Moldavian clerk, and imbibing the first rudiments of doing
business after the Armenian fashion, with the comfortable hope of
realising, in a short time, a fortune of three or four hundred thousand
pounds; but the Armenian was now gone, and farewell to the fine hopes I
had founded upon him the day before. What was I to do? I looked wildly
around, till my eyes rested on the Moldavian clerk, who was writing away
in his ledger with particular vehemence. Not knowing well what to do or
to say, I thought I might as well ask the Moldavian clerk when the
Armenian had departed, and when he thought that he would return. It is
true it mattered little to me when he departed, seeing that he was gone,
and it was evident that he would not be back soon; but I knew not what to
do, and in pure helplessness thought I might as well ask; so I went up to
the Moldavian clerk, and asked him when the Armenian had departed, and
whether he had been gone two days or three. Whereupon the Moldavian
clerk, looking up from his ledger, ma