e passes into the
debtor class. A creditor may be ruined by the poor debtor, but it is not
until he becomes unable to pay his own debts, that he begins to be
compassionated.

A debtor is a man of mark. Many eyes are fixed upon him; many have
interest in his well-being; his movements are of concern; he can not
disappear unheeded; his name is in many mouths; his name is upon many
books; he is a man of note--of promissory note; he fills the speculation
of many minds; men conjecture about him, wonder about him,--wonder and
conjecture whether he will pay. He is a man of consequence, for many are
running after him. His door is thronged with duns. He is inquired after
every hour of the day. Judges hear of him and know him. Every meal he
swallows, every coat he puts upon his back, every dollar he borrows,
appears before the country in some formal document. Compare his notoriety
with the obscure lot of the creditor,--of the man who has nothing but
claims on the world; a landlord, or fundholder, or some such disagreeable,
hard character.

The man who pays his way is unknown in his neighborhood. You ask the
milkman at his door, and he can not tell his name. You ask the butcher
where Mr. Payall lives, and he tells you he knows no such name, for it is
not in his books. You shall ask the baker, and he will tell you there is
no such person in the neighborhood. People that have his money fast in
their pockets, have no thought of his person or appellation. His house
only is known. No. 31 is good pay. No. 31 is ready money. Not a scrap of
paper is ever made out for No. 31. It is an anonymous house; its owner
pays his way to obscurity. No one knows anything about him, or heeds his
movements. If a carriage be seen at his door, the neighborhood is not full
of concern lest he be going to run away. If a package be removed from his
house, a score of boys are not employed to watch whether it be carried to
the pawnbroker. Mr. Payall fills no place in the public mind; no one has
any hopes or fears about him.

The creditor always figures in the fancy as a sour, single man, with
grizzled hair, a scowling countenance, and a peremptory air, who lives in
a dark apartment, with musty deeds about him, and an iron safe, as
impenetrable as his heart, grabbing together what he does not enjoy, and
what there is no one about him to enjoy. The debtor, on the other hand, is
always pictured with a wife and six fair-haired daughters, bound together
in affecti