ther hardened inmates
of the place ringing in his ears from the room hard by, where they sit
boozing; the rage and shame and discomfiture. No pity on him, I say,
my honest young gentlemen, for you, of course, have never indulged in
extravagance or folly, or paid the reckoning of remorse.

CHAPTER XLVI. Chains and Slavery

Remorse for past misdeeds and follies Harry sincerely felt, when he
found himself a prisoner in that dismal lock-up house, and wrath and
annoyance at the idea of being subjected to the indignity of arrest; but
the present unpleasantry he felt sure could only be momentary. He had
twenty friends who would release him from his confinement: to which of
them should he apply, was the question. Mr. Draper, the man of business,
who had been so obsequious to him: his kind uncle the Baronet, who had
offered to make his house Harry's home, who loved him as a son: his
cousin Castlewood, who had won such large sums from him: his noble
friends at the Chocolate-House, his good Aunt Bernstein--any one of
these Harry felt sure would give him a help in his trouble, though some
of the relatives, perhaps, might administer to him a little scolding for
his imprudence. The main point was, that the matter should be transacted
quietly, for Mr. Warrington was anxious that as few as possible of the
public should know how a gentleman of his prodigious importance had been
subject to such a vulgar process as an arrest. As if the public does
not end by knowing everything it cares to know. As if the dinner I shall
have to-day, and the hole in the stocking which I wear at this present
writing, can be kept a secret from some enemy or other who has a mind
to pry it out--though my boots are on, and my door was locked when I
dressed myself! I mention that hole in the stocking for sake of example
merely. The world can pry out everything about us which it has a mind to
know. But then there is this consolation, which men will never accept
in their own cases, that the world doesn't care. Consider the amount of
scandal it has been forced to hear in its time, and how weary and blase
it must be of that kind of intelligence. You are taken to prison,
and fancy yourself indelibly disgraced? You are bankrupt under odd
circumstances? You drive a queer bargain with your friends and are found
out, and imagine the world will punish you? Psha! Your shame is only
vanity. Go and talk to the world as if nothing had happened, and nothing
has happene