and Morris, suddenly beholding his seven thousand eight hundred pounds

restored to him, and himself dismissed from the vicissitudes of the

leather trade, hastened the next morning to the office of his cousin

Michael.

Michael was something of a public character. Launched upon the law at a

very early age, and quite without protectors, he had become a trafficker

in shady affairs. He was known to be the man for a lost cause; it was

known he could extract testimony from a stone, and interest from a

gold-mine; and his office was besieged in consequence by all that

numerous class of persons who have still some reputation to lose, and

find themselves upon the point of losing it; by those who have

made undesirable acquaintances, who have mislaid a compromising

correspondence, or who are blackmailed by their own butlers. In

private life Michael was a man of pleasure; but it was thought his dire

experience at the office had gone far to sober him, and it was known

that (in the matter of investments) he preferred the solid to the

brilliant. What was yet more to the purpose, he had been all his life a

consistent scoffer at the Finsbury tontine.

It was therefore with little fear for the result that Morris presented

himself before his cousin, and proceeded feverishly to set forth his

scheme. For near upon a quarter of an hour the lawyer suffered him to

dwell upon its manifest advantages uninterrupted. Then Michael rose from

his seat, and, ringing for his clerk, uttered a single clause: 'It won't

do, Morris.'

It was in vain that the leather merchant pleaded and reasoned, and

<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>