undred thousand pounds, and my commercial name was among
the best in the colony. Six months after that, the rot, the infernal
rot, had turned my thriving populous pastures into shambles for
carrion-mutton, and I had not sixpence of my own in the wide world. A
few of the more generous of my creditors left me a hundred pounds with
which to make my miserable way to some South American port on the
Pacific.

"So I chose Valparaiso, to paint miniatures, and teach English,
French, Italian, and German in. But earthquakes shook my poor house,
and the storm-fiend shook my soul with fear;--for skies in lightning
and thunder are to me as the panorama and hurly-burly of the Day of
Wrath, in all the stupid rushing to and fro and dazed stumbling of
Martin's great picture. I shall surely die by lightning; I have not
had that live shadow of a sky-reaching fear hanging over me, with its
black wings and awful mutterings, so long for nothing; in every flash
my eyes are scathed by the full blaze of hell. If I had been deaf and
blind, I might have lived in Valparaiso. As it was, I must go
somewhere where I need not sit all day and night stopping my ears and
with my face covered, fearing that the rocks would fall upon me too
soon.

"So, with my wife and the child,--we have had no other, thank God!--I
got round Cape Horn--Heaven knows how! I dare not think of that
time--to the United States. We were making for Boston; but the ship,
strained by long stress of heavy weather, sprung a leak, and we put in
at Baltimore. I was pleased with the place; it is picturesque, and has
a kindly look; and as all places were alike to me then, save by the
choice of a whim, I let go my weary anchor there.

"But the Baltimoreans only admired my pictures,--they did not buy
them; they only wondered at my polyglot accomplishment, and were
content with ringing silly-kind changes on an Encyclopaedic compliment
about the Admirable Crichton, and other well-educated personages, to
be found alphabetically embalmed in Conversations-Lexicons,--they did
not inquire into my system of teaching, or have quarterly knowledge of
my charges. So I fled from Baltimore, pretty speeches, and starvation,
to San Francisco, plain talk, and pure gold. And now--see here,
Sir!--I carry these always about with me, lest the pretty pickings of
this Tom Tiddler's ground should make my experience forget."

He drew from his pocket an "illuminated" card, bearing a likeness of
Queen Victoria, a