interrupted at the point where we held it fortunate detectives were
not employed to go in pursuit of Fopp, as they both were of one kith
and kin, only that they had different processes for draining purses.

"My fashionable friends, on hearing of my distress, had no more
attentions to bestow upon me. And as I had no more dinners to give,
the newspapers also let me drop very quietly. I should not forget to
mention, however, that one huge fellow, who commanded the columns of
a very small paper, and made the importance of his position a means
of getting loans of his friends, said time would establish the fact
that I was an adventurer. I entertained a hope that the good old
Evening Post would have answered this, but it never did. It was
something that I could console my heart with the fact, that the
little paper could do me no harm, since its circulation never got
beyond two hundred prosey old women, who admired the way the cunning
fellow wore his hair and discoursed upon good society, though he
held it a virtue never to pay a debt.

"A friend or two, as poor as myself, and who had clung to me as long
as a dollar remained, advised the getting up of an affair of honor
with this editor; but, as I had always chosen to be a philosopher,
and believing valor an article better preserved with peace than war,
I objected. It was then suggested by one of my friends, who was, or
had been a politician, (an enemy of his said he had twice been
driven out of Wall Street for violating its rules of morality,) that
the affair could be more easily settled over a champagne supper at
Delmonico's. The best eater and drinker could then demand his
opponent to consider himself vanquished and pay the bill, the same
being accepted as a sufficient apology. Upon inquiry, it was found
that the editor was famous in this sort of warfare, hence it would