sident, looking libraries at me, "when
one mortal has become security for another mortal, and suddenly annuls
and stultifies his bond, to say that the other mortal has committed a
_fault_ is just to call brandy--_water_. Sir," continued Mr Bombasty,
adjusting his India cravat, "that man has perpetrated a crime--a crime
_primy facey--exy fishio_."

I saw that my time was come, and I said nothing.

"If," said Mr Bombasty, "you had lost your intellect, I am a voluntary
contributor, and could have got you chains and a keeper in Bedlam. If
you had broken a limb, I am a life-governor, and it would have been a
pleasure to me to send you to the hospital. But you may as well ask me
to put life into a dead man, as to be of service to a creature who has
lost his security. You had better die at once. It would be a happy
release. I speak as a friend."

"Thank you, sir," said I.

"I hear complaints against you, but I don't listen to them. Every thing
is swallowed up in one remarkable fact. Your security has let you down.
You must go about your business. I speak as the president of this
Christian society, and not, I hope, without the feelings of a man. The
treasurer will pay your salary immediately, and we dispense with your
services."

"What am I to do?" I asked, half aloud.

"Just the best you can," answered the gentleman. "The audience is at an
end."

Mr Bombasty said no more, but drew from his coat pocket a snuff-box of
enormous dimensions. From it he grasped between his thumb and finger a
moderate handful of stable-smelling dust. His nose and India
handkerchief partook of it in equal shares, and then he rang his bell
with presidential dignity, and ordered up his customary lunch of chops
and porter. A few hours afterwards I was again upon the world, ready to
begin the fight of life anew, and armed with fifteen guineas for the
coming struggle. Mr Clayton had kept his word with me, and did not
desert me until I was once more fairly on the road to ruin.

One of the first consequences of my unlooked-for meeting with the
faithful Thompson, was the repayment of the five shillings which he had
so generously spared me when I was about to leave him for Birmingham,
without as many pence in my scrip. During my absence, however, fortune
had placed my honest friend in a new relation to a sum of this value.
Five shillings were not to him, as before, sixty pence. The proprietor
of the house in which he lived, and which he had found it