publican who had sold his business. He had the
purchase-money in his pocket, and the fellows drugged him. He ought to
have known better, seeing how often he had watched the brigands
operating on other people; but as he lost L700, and as his assailants
are still at large with their shares of the spoil, we must not reproach
him or add to his misery.

I picked out Jerry for portraiture because he is a fairly typical
specimen of a bad--a very bad--set. When the history of our decline and
fall comes to be Written by some Australian Gibbon, the historian may
choose the British bully and turfite to set alongside of the awful
creatures who preyed on the rich fools of wicked old Rome.

THE GENTLEMAN, THE DOCTOR, AND DICKY.

We have had enough of the roughs for a time, and I want now to deal with
a few of the wrecks that I see--wrecks that started their voyage with
every promise of prosperity. Let no young fellow who reads what follows
fancy that he is safe. He may be laborious; an unguarded moment after a
spell of severe work may see him take the first step to ruin. He may be
brilliant: his brilliancy of intellect, by causing him to be courted,
may lead him into idleness, and idleness is the bed whereon parasitic
vices flourish rankly. Take warning.

I was invited to go for a drive, but I had letters to write, and said
so. A quiet old man who was sitting in the darkest corner of the bar
spoke to me softly, "If your letters are merely about ordinary
business, you may dictate them to me here, and I will transcribe them
and send them off." I replied that I could do them as quickly myself.
The old man smiled. "You do not send letters in shorthand. I can take a
hundred and forty words a minute, and you can do your correspondence and
go away." The oddity of the proposal attracted me. I agreed to dictate.
The old man took out his notebook, and in ten minutes the work was done.
We came back in an hour, and by that time each letter was transcribed in
a beautiful, delicate longhand. I handed the scribe a shilling, and he
was satisfied. The Gentleman, as we called him, writes letters for
anyone who can spare him a glass of liquor or a few coppers; but I had
never tested his skill before. There was no one in the bar, so I sat
down beside the old man, and we talked.

"You seem wonderfully clever at shorthand. I am surprised that you
haven't permanent work."

"It would do me little good. I can go on for a long time, but when my