ng him with lawyers' letters? Wouldn't they all haul off?
Methought they would. Methought! why, meknew they would--mefancied how
they would fawn, and cringe, and apologize, and explain, and lick the
dust, and offer to polish his noble boots, and present themselves for
the honor of being kicked by him. Nothing is more degrading to our
common humanity than the attitude of a creditor toward a poor debtor
--except the attitude of that same creditor, when he learns that his
debtor has suddenly become rich.

Having finally succeeded in mastering this great idea, I hurried off to
Jack to congratulate him.

I found him in his room. He was lying down, looking very blue, very
dismal, and utterly used up. At first, I did not notice this, but burst
forth in a torrent of congratulations, shaking his hand most violently.
He raised himself slightly from the sofa on which he was reclining, and
his languid hand did not return my warm grasp, nor did his face exhibit
the slightest interest in what I said. Seeing this, I stopped short
suddenly.

"Hallo, old boy!" I cried. "What's the matter? Any thing happened?
Isn't it true, then?"

"Oh, yes," said Jack, dolefully, leaning forward, with his elbows on
his knees, and looking at the floor.

"Well, you don't seem very jubilant about it. Any thing the matter?
Why, man, if you were dying, I would think you'd rise up at the idea
of seven thousand a year."

Jack said nothing.

At such a check as this to my enthusiastic sympathy, I sat in silence
for a time, and looked at him. His elbows were on his knees, his face
was pale, his hair in disorder, and his eyes were fixed on the wall
opposite with a vacant and abstracted stare. There was a haggard look
about his handsome face, and a careworn expression on his broad brow,
which excited within me the deepest sympathy and sadness. Something had
happened--something of no common kind. This was a something which was
far, very far, more serious than those old troubles which had oppressed
him. This was something far different from those old perplexities--the
entanglements with three engagements. Amid all those he was nothing but
a big, blundering baby; but now he seemed like a sorrow-stricken man.
Where was the light of his eyes, the glory of his brow, the music of
his voice? Where was that glow that once used to pervade his fresh,
open, sunny face? Where! It was Jack--but not the Jack of old. It was
Jack--but

"Alas! how changed from him
That l