On the door of one of the shabbiest houses in Jermyn Street the name of
Mr. Stapylton Toad for a long time figured, magnificently engraved on a
broad brass plate. There was nothing however, otherwise, in the
appearance of the establishment, which indicated that Mr. Toad's
progress was very rapid, or his professional career extraordinarily
prosperous. In an outward office one solitary clerk was seen, oftener
stirring his office fire than wasting his master's ink; and Mr. Toad was
known by his brother attorneys as a gentleman who was not recorded in
the courts as ever having conducted a single cause. In a few years,
however, a story was added to the Jermyn Street abode, which, new
pointed and new painted, began to assume a mansion-like appearance. The
house-door was also thrown open, for the solitary clerk no longer found
time to answer the often agitated bell; and the eyes of the entering
client were now saluted by a gorgeous green baize office door; the
imposing appearance of which was only equalled by Mr. Toad's new private
portal, splendid with a brass knocker and patent varnish. And now his
brother attorneys began to wonder "how Toad got on! and who Toad's
clients were!"

A few more years rolled over, and Mr. Toad was seen riding in the Park
at a classical hour, attended by a groom in a classical livery. And now
"the profession" wondered still more, and significant looks were
interchanged by "the respectable houses:" and flourishing practitioners
in the City shrugged up their shoulders, and talked mysteriously of
"money business," and "some odd work in annuities." In spite, however,
of the charitable surmises of his brother lawyers, it must be confessed
that nothing of even an equivocal nature ever transpired against the
character of the flourishing Mr. Toad, who, to complete the
mortification of his less successful rivals, married, and at the same