THE MISERIES OF A GENTLEMAN OUT OF DIFFICULTIES.

BOTH poets and prosers have elaborately celebrated the perplexities of gentlemen in difficulties. The bitterness of such a position most people are able to appreciate, either in their own persons, or the person of one or other of their friends. Every man, in fact, is more or less in difficulties: and the duke, with his two hundred thousand per annum, and a builder's bill of seventy-five thousand pounds, by way of item in his annual expenditure, is as much at fault to make his two prodigious ends meet, as the retired banker's clerk, residing on Islington-hill, to make his two hundred per annum cover the two hundred and fifteen pounds expended for family and self, between the January and December of the current year.

I have, therefore, little hesitation in avowing that, for some twelve years of my life, I wrote myself, like the hero of the Olympic farce, "a gentleman in difficulties." I was one of the unfortunate many born to expectations. I scarcely know which may be considered most under the ban of providence, the younger son of an elder brother, or the elder son of a younger brother; but the latter misfortune was my prerogative of birthright. My father had nothing to bequeath me but the reversion of my legitimate seventh of his original fortune of ten thousand pounds; two-thirds of the interest thereof being settled, by way of dowery, on his second spouse, the mother of the six unfortunates who shared my patrimony.

With such prospects, I should have perhaps betaken myself, on the decease of my respected parents, to the river or the road, to become food for fishes, or provide fishes for my food; but for the expectation of succeeding to the property of my aunt Ursula, a maiden lady four years my father's senior, and consequently not very far, it was to be hoped, from striking her great balance-sheet.

Now my aunt Ursula had originally inherited only the same portion as her brother; but having no small children, or great pretensions to encroach upon her economies, there existed a rumour in the Twittington family that, within the last forty years, the ten thousand pounds had expanded into twenty. I was, therefore, generally looked upon (especially by all to whom I had in confidence announced the fact), as heir-apparent to the twenty thousand pounds. By this means I placed myself tolerably at ease. Though my expectancies were not of a nature to be accepted as security for a loan, they were such as to encourage my running into debt; and into debt I ran, as hard as my folly could carry me. Before I was five-and-twenty, all the extortioners of St. James's-street and Pall-mall, were familiar with my name as maids of thirteen are with puppy-dogs. It is often said in the world of letters, such and such a man is of the highest eminence; we find him mentioned in all the books of his time." In the world of debtors my name was equally renowned;-for it was in every body's books, and to a considerable amount.

My aunt Ursula resided in a horrible one-windowed mansion, in Paradise-place, Craven-hill, to which, in conversation with my tradesmen

or familiars, I used to advert as "the valuable little freehold property in Middlesex to which I was to succeed, on the demise of an infirm female relative, seventy-four years of age, afflicted with rheumatic gout;" and as my assiduous Sunday court to the sirloin of the old lady, who happened to be my godmother, procured me the occasional benefaction of a fifty-pound note, which I managed to flourish in its pristine shape in the eyes of every single human being to whom I was indebted in the sum of five, I managed to carry on the war, if not gloriously, at least so as to keep my army of martyrs in good heart. Numberless were the individuals who kept as active watch as myself over the obituaries of the daily papers, hoping to espy therein the demise of "Mrs. Ursula Twittington, aged seventy-five.'

But the old jade was as tough as a lawbook bound in parchment ! She lived on, in our despite. Yet what pleasure, unless that of annoying one, could she find in life? Whenever I visited Paradise-place, I found her purring with her pet maid and pet tabby over the fire; and it would have been difficult to determine which of the three was least awake to mundane enjoyments. At length my tailors, hatters, bootmakers, mercers, and all the chartered conspirators against a young man's peace of mind and body, began to remonstrate with me touching this exceeding longevity. They assured me it was not the custom of trade for an old woman, from whom a young gentleman had expectations, to survive so long; and, as they seemed to insinuate that it was my duty to forward the despatch of their business by despatching my aunt, I assured them, in return, that like Macbeth, "I dared do all that might become a man," but that as to making an end of the old lady, by way of a beginning to my fortunes, I held it highly unbecoming. "It is, however, a thing devised by the enemy that," I exclaimed to one of my Bond-street duns, whose insinuations on the subject were almost Thurtellian,

"DO IT!-nor leave the task to me !"

All this time I was in a horrible fright lest the clamour of my chorus of creditors should become audible beyond Bayswater, and reach the ears of the sensitive old lady. Setting aside their destructive projects, I was convinced that the surmise of my getting into debt would suffice to keep me out of her will; and as to the ignominy of arrest, it would put me in such bad odour, as to nip every bud of my expectations." All my wit, therefore, was at work to obtain delay from the invaders of my peace. If time were allowed me, all would go well. It needed only for Mistress Ursula to go to her grave with the conviction of my being a thrifty young man, to render thrift, thenceforward, a superfluous

virtue.

With this view I changed my quarters as often as a militia regiment in war time. I dodged from Middlesex to wit, into Surrey to wit, whenever I saw myself followed in the street by fellows whose faces were disagreeably known to me; and dodged back again from Surrey into Middlesex, whenever I had reason to consider Westminster a safer borough than Southwark. In my lodgings in Spring-gardens, to which I adhered with all the constancy peculiar to a long arrear of rent, there was a heavy marble paper-weight, under which I used to ensconce my

unpaid bills, by way of keeping them out of sight and out of mindlike a gravestone laid over a termagant wife. I knew the cut of these horrible missiles at a mile distance. Like Cassius they had a lean and hungry look. The envelope of soft apothecary's paper, closed with a reeking vermilion-coloured wafer-or when too succinct for an envelope, the long narrow coffin-shaped fold of the half-sheet, emblazoned at the top with the royal arms and a flourish of engraved announcements, -prefacing the ominous £ s. d.-is never to be mistaken!

Then, there was usually a lawyer's letter or two,-studiously addressed to "Henry Robert Maltford Twittington, Esq. (for solicitors, like the Vicar of Wakefield, love to give the whole name); and I, who am Harry Twittington, among my familiars, and Hal, with my brothers and sisters, have observed that every disagreeable letter I ever received in my life, was addressed at full length as above-or superscribed with alphabetical precision, to " H. R. M. Twittington, Esq." There is something savouring of the warrant, in such technical accuracy. The twopenny post had become a source of regular persecution. The days were few and far between when it did not bring to my hand some importunate reminder, the tenour of which grew plainer and plainer every day. I was upbraided with broken promises, reviled for my unpunctuality-assured that I had infringed upon every body's rules for the conduct of their business, &c. &c. Jewellers, who, by their habit of allowing twenty per cent. for ready money, clearly proclaim their intention of giving four years' credit, addressed to me at the end of two, as though I were a pickpocket; while my tailors wrote to express their regret that my tardiness of payment should compel them to take harsh measures against me, as if apprehending that the measures they had hitherto taken, were likely to be gratuitous.

I was now growing a desperate man. My home was becoming hateful to me. Those single knocks of " a person with a small account," used to depress my soul with gloom; they were knocks and Erebus to me! All the world seemed in league against my peace. If any one stared at me in the street, I took him for a sheriff's officer; or if, as I stood at the window of my lodgings, I descried a man crossing the street with a paper in his hand, it seemed to contain my doom. I remember being nearly startled into a fainting-fit, because a stranger addressed me in a public reading-room with, "I have a little business with you, sir, in private!"-who, after all, proved to be a starving poet, soliciting my subscription to his elegies. I was, in short, growing attenuated as a harlequin, and nervous as an aspen-leaf, when it pleased certain candidates for Tyburn tree burglariously to enter the premises of No. 1, Paradise-row, as Satan those of its prototype; and as there were only fourteen houses intervening between the dwelling-house where the effraction was perpetrated, and No. 15," the valuable freehold" inhabited by Mrs. Ursula, she set herself down by anticipation as robbed and murdered; and not to disappoint her own expectations of giving up the ghost, actually expired within the month, a victim to anxiety. Her apprehension of seeing a man at the foot of her bed, with a black crape over his face, filled her house with black crape, scarves, and hatbands.

I shall never forget my sensations, when the letter announcing the

demise of this "much-lamented lady," by the twopenny post, which had so often spoken daggers to my sensibility! I knew, by the respectful terms in which it was endited by the favourite maid, that my inheritance was safe; and while the old creature pretended to be overwhelmed with grief, that her mistress should have departed without finding time to give me her blessing, I was equally overwhelmed with joy that she should have departed without finding time to alter her will. It was a day of jubilee; for, on examining her testamentary disposition, it proved that the old lady had been much wider awake than I gave her credit for; and instead of succeeding to twenty thousand pounds, I succeeded to thirty-four! Aunt Ursula's investments of her savings had been so judicious, that, after paying every sixpence I owed in the world (that is in the parish of St. James's, which in fact constitutes the world), and settling an annuity upon the old maid and tabby cat, who appeared to be one and indivisible, I found myself in possession of a clear eight hundred per annum-eight hundred per annum to me, who for years past had not been sure of eight hundred pence! It was Peru, it was Mexico, it was Golconda-it was the philosopher's stone-it was the National Debt-it was boundlessfathomless-unimaginable!

For some weeks all was confusion in my mind; I was ill with the labour of computing, for my own amusement, the number of shillings, pence, or farthings, contained in my sum total-how much it enabled me to expend per month, per week, per diem, per minute !-I worried myself to death with these and similar circumstantiabilities. I could not help fretting about the depreciation of stocks, and the disrepute of exchequer bills. The fluctuation of Spanish bonds tempted me, and I did buy -I frequented the Stock Exchange, till my anxious, monied-man sort of face, became known (in the market, and I was bothered with solicitations to take shares in this and that speculation;-railways, linen companies, mining companies, steam-carriages, and the Lord and Basinghall-street know what! But I had learnt from adversity the wisdom of the French proverb, un je tiens, vaut mieux que deux tu l'auras;”— and thenceforward dismissing from my imagination the attractions of the bird in the bush, finally resolved to keep mine in hand; that is my money, soberly invested in government securities.

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I now set about being a happy man-I never had the smallest vocation for matrimony, so that my fortune satisfied the utmost limit of my desires; and I resolved to take a long lease of a little snuggery in Spring-gardens, upon which, during my days of insolvency, I had fixed a longing eye. I made up my mind to furnish it handsomely; and with the addition of a neat cab, horse, and tiger, a stall at the opera, and a free admission to each of the patent theatres (which amounts to a prohibition against ever entering either, an advantage scarcely sufficiently to be appreciated), I hoped to settle and take rest for life.But I could not help noticing, in the course of my domestic arrangements, how custom becomes second nature. Though ready money was now at my command, I could not get over my old habit of calculating where and how I should obtain longest credit. Then about my stable. I had so long found it impossible to have a horse of my own, and so long argued to making myself believe it was a far more convenient

thing to hire one when I had occasion, than keep a horse and groom eating their heads off, that the sight of mine on a rainy day worried me to death.

As to the system of ready-money payments, though the flattering unction of discount reconciled me to large disbursements, yet as regarded smaller sums, not admitting of such compensation, I own it seemed as if I were making the people a present when so vastly punctual. They had been satisfied when I paid them once a year, for with me, an annual settlement passed formerly for prompt payment; why therefore lose the interest of my money by weekly or daily disbursements? There is a sneaking untrustworthy sort of air in having one's hand always in one's pocket; and I have observed that nothing but a gambler has always a well-filled purse at his fingers' ends, prepared to pay or play.

No sooner had I got myself out of my tradesmen's books and into new habits-the lustrous coat, hat, and boots, replacing my former well-worn, if not willingly-worn habiliments-induced a thousand impertinent applications for loans and gifts, from folks who would not have flung me a maravedi to relieve my former distresses; and as people seldom say, "Can you oblige me with twenty pounds," by word of mouth, these applications as well as innumerable circulars from Missionary Societies, Peace Associations, Abolition Societies, Humane Societies both for man and beast, and all the other jobbery of philanthropy, made their appearance by post or errand-boy, announced by a single or a double knock.

Now my nerves had not yet accustomed themselves to this agitating appeal! It still sounded in my ears like "Master Bernardine rise and be hanged," or "Mr. Henry Robert Maltford Twittington, the settlement of your account, or the name of your solicitor ?" With hundreds in my bureau (for the dread of a correspondence with a person sure to address me, business-wise, as H. R. M. Twittington, Esq., kept me from intrusting my belongings to a banker), and sovereigns in my purse, I have literally been startled into a flurry when presented with the most insignificant two-and-sixpenny demand-and been ready to jump out of my skin on having a wafered letter suddenly placed in my hand.

Nobody can duly appreciate such agonies but "a gentleman" still "in difficulties." Such a one, however, will readily enter into my feelings when I say that to this hour I tremble from head to foot on discovering in some crowded thoroughfare that I am pertinaciously followed by an unknown individual, as if his eye were upon me.

Nay, so true is old Billy's observation that "use doth breed the habits of a man," that to this day there are certain segments of Bond-street in which I walk as if its pavements were of egg-shells, without daring to look to the right or left; so long was I accustomed to avoid the hated spots where angry haberdashers were on the watch for me; or to scud along without venturing to cast an eye at the gay plush garters or foulard handkerchiefs, dangling in their windows. In former days, I used to fancy that even policemen and street-keepers were set to keep a look out for me; and to this day, never bestow a gratuity on the latter, without averting my face, as in the time when my sixpence was