ng Mrs. Brown.

Meanwhile her husband, continuing through liking what he had begun
through necessity, slackened not his industry in augmenting his fortune;
on the contrary, small profits were but a keener incentive to large
ones,--as the glutton only sharpened by luncheon his appetite for
dinner. Still was Mr. Brown the very Alcibiades of brokers, the
universal genius, suiting every man to his humour. Business of whatever
description, from the purchase of a borough to that of a brooch, was
alike the object of Mr. Brown's most zealous pursuit: taverns, where
country cousins put up; rustic habitations, where ancient maidens
resided; auction or barter; city or hamlet,--all were the same to that
enterprising spirit, which made out of every acquaintance--a commission!
Sagacious and acute, Mr. Brown perceived the value of eccentricity in
covering design, and found by experience that whatever can be laughed at
as odd will be gravely considered as harmless. Several of the broker's
peculiarities were, therefore, more artificial than natural; and
many were the sly bargains which he smuggled into effect under the
comfortable cloak of singularity. No wonder, then, that the crafty
Morris grew gradually in repute as a person of infinite utility and
excellent qualifications; or that the penetrating friends of his
deceased sire bowed to the thriving itinerant, with a respect which they
denied to many in loftier professions and more general esteem.

CHAPTER IX.

Trust me you have an exceeding fine lodging here,--very neat
and private.--BEN JONSON.

It was a tolerably long walk to the abode of which the worthy broker
spoke in such high terms of commendation. At length, at the suburbs
towards Paddington, Mr. Brown stopped at a very small house; it stood
rather retired from its surrounding neighbours, which were of a loftier
and more pretending aspect than itself, and, in its awkward shape
and pitiful bashfulness, looked exceedingly like a school-boy finding
himself for the first time in a grown up party, and shrinking with all
possible expedition into the obscurest corner he can discover. Passing
through a sort of garden, in which a spot of grass lay in the embraces
of a stripe of gravel, Mr. Brown knocked upon a very bright knocker at a
very new door. The latter was opened, and a foot-boy appeared.

"Is Mrs. Copperas within?" asked the broker.

"Yees, sir," said the boy.

"Show this gentleman and myself up stairs,