bitter still.

Frank D----, Esq.'s coarse grandeur answered very well indeed so long as
prices were high. While the harvests were large and the markets inflated;
while cattle fetched good money; while men's hearts were full of
mirth--all went well. It is whispered now that the grand Frank has
secretly borrowed 25_l_. of a little cottage shopkeeper in the adjacent
village--a man who sells farthing candles and ounces of tea--to pay his
reapers. It is also currently whispered that Frank is the only man really
safe, for the following reason--they are all 'in' so deep they find it
necessary to keep him going. The squire is 'in,' the bank is 'in,' the
lawyer is 'in,' the small farmers with two hundred pounds capital are
'in,' and the elderly ladies who took their bank-notes out of their
tea-caddies are 'in.' That is to say, Mr. Frank owes them so much money
that, rather than he should come to grief (when, they must lose pretty
well all), they prefer to keep him afloat. It is a noticeable fact that
Frank is the only man who has not raised his voice and shouted
'Depression.' Perhaps the squire thinks that so repellent a note, if
struck by a leading man like Frank, might not be to his interest, and has
conveyed that thought to the gentleman in the dog-cart with the groom
behind. There are, however, various species of the façade farmer.

'What kind of agriculture is practised here?' the visitor from town
naturally asks his host, as they stroll towards the turnips (in another
district), with shouldered guns. 'Oh, you had better see Mr. X----,' is
the reply, 'He is our leading agriculturist; he'll tell you all about it.'
Everybody repeats the same story, and once Mr. X----'s name is started
everybody talks of him. The squire, the clergyman--even in casually
calling at a shop in the market town, or at the hotel (there are few inns
now)--wherever he goes the visitor hears from all of Mr. X----. A