of one of those toads which are found from time to time in blocks of
coal, and have lain there unbreathing and unmoving since the deluge.
However, he was a man of business, and so was I for the moment. I handed
him my brother's note; and like a ray of sunshine on the torpid snake,
it put him into immediate motion. He now took off his spectacles, as if
to indulge himself with a view of me by the naked eye; and after a
scrutinizing look, which, in another place and person, I should probably
have resented as impertinent, but which here seemed part of his
profession, he rose from his seat and ushered me into another apartment.
This room was probably his place of reception for criminals of a more
exalted order; for it was lined with foreign prints, had one or two
tolerable Dutch pictures, and a bookcase. Out of his bookcase he took
down a folio, examined it, compared the writing of my credentials with
the signatures of a book which, as Cromwell's son said of his trunk,
contained the lives and fortunes, or at least that on which depended the
lives and fortunes, of half the noble _roués_ of England, their
"promises to pay," bonds, mortgages, and post-obits, and then performed
the operation on myself. My L.2500 in prospect was mulcted of a fifth
for the trouble of realizing it; of another fifth for prompt payment,
and of another for expediting the affair of my commission. "Another such
victory would have ruined me."

However, I bore the torture well. In truth, I had so little regard for
any object but the grand one of wearing a sword and epaulette, that if
Mordecai had demanded the whole sum in fifths, I should have scarcely
winced. But my philosophy stood me in good part, for it won a grim smile
from the torturer, and even a little of his confidence.

"This," said he, running his finger down a list which looked endless, "I
call my peerage book." Turning to another of equal dimensions, "there