five days a week in order to eat turtle and venison in public (and with
the air of eating them every day) on the sixth; and they may immure
themselves in their back rooms in London throughout the autumn in order
to persuade folks that they are still at Trouville, where for ten days
they did really reside and in splendour; but all their stint and
self-incarceration, so far from awakening pity, only fill us with
contempt. I am afraid that even the complaining tones of our City friend
who tells us that in consequence of 'the present unsettled state of the
markets' he has been obliged to make 'great retrenchments'--which it
seems on inquiry consist in putting down one of his carriages and
keeping three horses instead of six--fail to draw the sympathising tear.
Indeed, to a poor man this pretence of suffering on the part of the rich
is perhaps even more offensive than their boasts of their prosperity.

On the other hand, when the rich become really poor their case is hard
indeed; though, strange to say, we hear little of it. It is like
drowning; there is a feeble cry, a little ineffectual assistance from
the bystanders, and then they go under. It is not a question of pinch
with _them_; they have fallen into the gaping mouth of ruin, and it has
devoured them. If we ever see them again, it is in the second generation
as waiters (upon Providence), or governesses, and we say, 'Why, dear me,
that was Bullion's son (or daughter), wasn't it?' using the past tense,
as if they were dead. 'I remember him when he lived in Eaton Square.'
This class of cases rarely comes under the head of 'genteel poverty.'
They were at the top, and hey presto! by some malignant stroke of fate
they are at the bottom; and there they stick.

I don't believe in bachelors ever experiencing the pinch of poverty; I
have heard them complaining of it at the club, while ordering Medina
oysters instead of Natives, but, after all, what does it signify even if