warning, and--not often take it.

Whatever the source that had supplied Jasper Losely with the money from
which he had so generously extracted the sovereigns intended to console
Waife for the loss of Sophy, that source either dried up or became wholly
inadequate to his wants; for elasticity was the felicitous peculiarity of
Mr. Losely's wants. They accommodated themselves to the state of his
finances with mathematical precision, always requiring exactly five times
the amount of the means placed at his disposal. From a shilling to a
million, multiply his wants by five times the total of his means, and you
arrived at a just conclusion. Jasper called upon Poole, who was slowly
recovering, but unable to leave his room; and finding that gentleman in a
more melancholy state of mind than usual, occasioned by Uncle Sam's
brutal declaration that "if responsible for his godson's sins he was not
responsible for his debts," and that he really thought "the best thing
Samuel Dolly could do, was to go to prison for a short time and get
whitewashed," Jasper began to lament his own hard fate: "And just when
one of the finest women in Paris has come here on purpose to see me,"
said the lady-killer,--"a lady who keeps her carriage, Dolly! Would have
introduced you, if you had been well enough to go out. One can't be
always borrowing of her. I wish one could. There's mother Crane would
sell her gown off her back for me; but 'Gad, sir, she snubs, and
positively frightens me. Besides, she lays traps to demean me; set me to
work like a clerk!--not that I would hurt your feelings, Dolly: if you
are a clerk, or something of that sort, you are a gentleman at heart.
Well, then, we are both done up and cleaned out; and my decided opinion
is, that nothing is left but a bold stroke."

"I have no objection to bold strokes, but I don't see any; and Uncle
Sam's bold stroke of the Fleet prison is not at all to my taste."