shine on the torpid snake,
it put him into immediate motion. He now took off his spectacles, as if
to indulge himself with a view of me by the naked eye; and after a
scrutinizing look, which, in another place and person, I should probably
have resented as impertinent, but which here seemed part of his
profession, he rose from his seat and ushered me into another apartment.
This room was probably his place of reception for criminals of a more
exalted order; for it was lined with foreign prints, had one or two
tolerable Dutch pictures, and a bookcase. Out of his bookcase he took
down a folio, examined it, compared the writing of my credentials with
the signatures of a book which, as Cromwell's son said of his trunk,
contained the lives and fortunes, or at least that on which depended the
lives and fortunes, of half the noble _roues_ of England, their
"promises to pay," bonds, mortgages, and post-obits, and then performed
the operation on myself. My L.2500 in prospect was mulcted of a fifth
for the trouble of realizing it; of another fifth for prompt payment,
and of another for expediting the affair of my commission. "Another such
victory would have ruined me."

However, I bore the torture well. In truth, I had so little regard for
any object but the grand one of wearing a sword and epaulette, that if
Mordecai had demanded the whole sum in fifths, I should have scarcely
winced. But my philosophy stood me in good part, for it won a grim smile
from the torturer, and even a little of his confidence.

"This," said he, running his finger down a list which looked endless, "I
call my peerage book." Turning to another of equal dimensions, "there
lies my House of Commons. Not quite as many words wasted in it as in the
Honourable House, but rather to the purpose."

Mordecai grew facetious; the feeling that he had made a handsome
morning's work of it put him into spirits, and he let me into some of
the secrets of high life, with the air of a looker-on who sees the whole
game, and intends to pocket the stakes of the fools on both sides.
"Money, Mr Marston," said my hook-nosed and keen-eyed enlightener, "is
the true business of man. It is philosophy, science, and patriotism in
one; or, at least, without it the whole three are of but little service.
Your philosopher dies in a garret, your man of science hawks telescopes,
and your patriot starves in the streets, or gets himself hanged in
honour of the 'Rights of Man.' I have known all