1828.] The Major and Myself. 21 



" Poverty phew!" cried the Major; and he sang a stanza; "po- 

 verty is the mere fact of being without nothing more ; a negation of 

 means the reverse of a settled income, do you observe ? A positive 

 condition of humanity, nevertheless. Poverty is the region of specula- 

 tion " 



" Very true," I despondingly interrupted ; but the philosopher has 

 swallowed up the man. My dear sir, not poverty, but famine, is the 

 word philosophic famine, that supplies that desideratum in science a 

 vacuum. Oh, Major !" 



He was moved. I continued : " You marvel let us not wonder 

 our property is gone !" He strode violently towards the coach-office : I 

 trotted briskly and busily after him. " Our destiny is fixed !" 



" Hold your d d croaking !" roared the Major.- - 



" We are ripe for the sickle, and shall be cut down and garnered ; 

 beggary and want shall enlist us ; without the formulary or payment of a 

 shilling, in 



f the grisly legion that troop 



Beneath the sooty flag of Acheron/ 



In a word we shall go to the dogs, and be sent to the devil !" 



Thus did I, by trope and figure, pour out the bitterness of my soul to 

 my companion, who now perspired copiously, and coined new modes of 

 expression and modifications of utterance in the effectual transmission of 

 the agent's soul into the regions of Lucifer. 



Immediately upon our arrival in town, the Major departed, blaspheming, 

 to the office of the ill-starred insolvent ; leaving me to order my solitary 

 dinner at a tavern, to which he directed my attention. 



It was a fine winter evening. The " well-dressed people" were passing 

 the windows, with shawls over arms, and oranges in pocket, destined for 

 the pit and gallery of the theatre ; the boys, with ferocious voices, were 

 presenting their bills ; and the gentlemen of the ubiquitous finger were 

 becoming possessed of bandanas " under prime cost." 



There was no living creature in the coffee-room but myself. A full- 

 length clock stood moralizing in one corner, with its hands upon its face ; 

 like a wine-bibber, stung with compunction for past offences. The very 

 dog had betaken himself to the scullery, to be kicked about by the satur- 

 nine and extensive cook, by way of a change of life ; and the waiters were 

 lolling their egometical proportions on each side of the street-door. 



Having succeeded in overcoming the patient resistance of the most 

 obstinate pullet that ever stept out of egg-shell, and drank about a pint of 

 a black mixture set before me, and called port, I grew excessively 

 depressed (I remember that evening well !) and began to analyze, and 

 curse, and continue to guzzle the wine, till my lips dyed black ; and I 

 looked, for all the world, like Mr. Beverley in the last scene. I suspect 

 that the landlord mistook me for a rat that infested the place, and took 

 this method of poisoning me. 



Then there came into the room two individuals, who served to divert 

 my attention awhile from my sorrows. They caused to be procured 

 glasses of brandy and water, and it was astonishing to behold their prompt 

 appropriation of them. But I soon grew tired of these swillers ; nay, I 

 seemed to wish to pick a quarrel with them they looked so happy. 

 There was one with a sort of orange-peel complexion and rhubarb-coloured 

 wig, who talked in so low a key that I could not hear a word > and the 



