170 SOME GENTLEMAN'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



" Capital ! " exclaimed Ralph. 



" Talking of capital," said Harry, " the gemman seems to have 

 started with a capital of five hundred pounds, vich he paid into the 

 London bankers." 



" And which," quoth the Banker, (t 1 must tell you, he drew out 

 again the next morning, before he started from town : this enabled 

 him to sport the Bank-of-England paper, which was the pivot of his 

 fraud !" 



" Well, Sir, and pray what became of him, and his beautiful wife, 

 and the interesting dumb child ?" 



" Never heard a syllable of them after ; they did me to the amount 

 of six hundred pounds, which still stands to the account of ' Profit 

 and Loss,' in the ledger/' 



Now this I knew to be an infernal lie. The fact is, that about a 

 year after my embarkation at Falmouth, he had received intelligence 

 of my whereabout. I was then on the Continent. Maria and the 

 boy had quitted me, and proceeded, with plenty of cash, for St. Pe- 

 tersburg, where she hoped to make a splendid market of her un- 

 rivalled charms. He had employed one of the most worthy, most 

 excellent, but most acute attorneys in the universe to pursue me. 

 This gentleman was a profound classical scholar, but knew nothing 

 of any European language except his own. Notwithstanding this 

 drawback, by sheer professional acumen he found me. I had been 

 grossly illused. Being without papers, the police had shuffled me 

 from one state into another (as watchmen were wont, in old times, to 

 pass an intoxicated gentleman through the parishes and wards of 

 Westminster and London), until I became almost weary of existence. 

 The Austrians had trundled me over the border, into the dominions 

 of the Sardinian monarch, and the foolish police of this sovereign, 

 instead of quietly getting rid of me by setting me a foot beyond their 

 jurisdiction, absurdly conveyed me to a state-prison, in which, with 

 two gens-d'-armes, watching me night and day, I languished for more 

 than a year. At length the attorney arrived with letters from the 

 British Minister for Foreign Affairs, on the credit of which the 

 ultra jackasses handed him over a sum of one thousand pounds, of 

 which they had recklessly despoiled me. They wanted the attorney 

 to take me home with him, but this he declined. They insisted, and 

 he cursed them heartily for their impudence, in supposing that he 

 would condescend to travel with a swindler for this, in the heat of 

 passion, he so far forgot himself as to designate me. I, however, 

 have long since forgiven him, for we have come together since, and 

 the pure excellence of his heart has been made manifest to me. I have 

 become under obligations to him, which I most gladly acknowledge. 

 He is a good man, and I would part with a finger to serve him. He 

 departed by the diligence; but scarcely had he progressed a league, 

 when a light cart, containing two gens-d '-armes and myself, overtook 

 him. My official companions insisted on his considering me as his 

 prisoner. He, in reply, by means of an interpreter, told them can- 

 didly he'd see them in the naughty place first he did not like me, 

 and would not have me. He had received enough to cover his 

 client's debt and his own expenses, and he wanted nothing more. 



