for their own profit, that is to say, and the discouragement
of public gambling. It was thus in his power - and, as he

was of gratefultemper, it was among the things that he
desired - to put John in the way of growing rich; and thus,

without thought or industry, or so much as even understanding
the game at which he played, but by simply buying and selling

what he was told to buy and sell, that plaything of fortune
was presently at the head of between eleven and twelve

thousand pounds, or, as he reckoned it, of upward of sixty
thousand dollars.

How he had come to deserve this wealth, any more than how he
had formerly earned disgrace at home, was a problem beyond

the reach of his philosophy. It was true that he had been
industrious at the bank, but no more so than the cashier, who

had seven small children and was visibly sinking in decline.
Nor was the step which had determined his advance - a visit

to a dive with a month's wages in his pocket - an act of such
transcendent virtue, or even wisdom, as to seem to merit the

favour of the gods. From some sense of this, and of the
dizzy see-saw - heaven-high, hell-deep - on which men sit

clutching; or perhaps fearing that the sources of his fortune
might be insidiously traced to some root in the field of

petty cash; he stuck to his work, said not a word of his new
circumstances, and kept his account with a bank in a

different quarter of the town. The concealment, innocent as
it seems, was the first step in the second tragicomedy of

John's existence.
Meanwhile, he had never written home. Whether from

diffidence or shame, or a touch of anger, or mere
procrastination, or because (as we have seen) he had no skill

in literary arts, or because (as I am sometimes tempted to
suppose) there is a law in human nature that prevents young

men - not otherwise beasts - from the performance of this
simple act of piety - months and years had gone by, and John

had never written. The habit of not writing, indeed, was
already fixed before he had begun to come into his fortune;

and it was only the difficulty of breaking this long silence
that withheld him from an instant restitution of the money he

had stolen or (as he preferred to call it) borrowed. In vain
he sat before paper, attending on inspiration; that heavenly

nymph, beyond suggesting the words 'my dear father,' remained
obstinately silent; and presently John would crumple up the

sheet and decide, as soon as he had 'a good chance,' to carry
the money home in person. And this delay, which is

indefensible, was his second step into the snares of fortune.
Ten years had passed, and John was drawing near to thirty.

He had kept the promise of his boyhood, and was now of a
lusty frame, verging toward corpulence; good features, good

eyes, a genial manner, a ready laugh, a long pair of sandy
whiskers, a dash of an American accent, a close familiarity

with the great American joke, and a certain likeness to a R-
y-l P-rs-n-ge, who shall remain nameless for me, made up the

man's externals as he could be viewed in society. Inwardly,
in spite of his gross body and highly masculine whiskers, he

was more like a maiden lady than a man of twenty-nine.
It chanced one day, as he was strolling down Market Street on

the eve of his fortnight's holiday, that his eye was caught
by certain railway bills, and in very idleness of mind he

calculated that he might be home for Christmas if he started
on the morrow. The fancy thrilled him with desire, and in

one moment he decided he would go.
There was much to be done: his portmanteau to be packed, a

credit to be got from the bank where he was a wealthy
customer, and certain offices to be transacted for that other

bank in which he was an humble clerk; and it chanced, in
conformity with human nature, that out of all this business

it was the last that came to be neglected. Night found him,
not only equipped with money of his own, but once more (as on

that former occasion) saddled with a considerable sum of
other people's.

Now it chanced there lived in the same boarding-house a
fellow-clerk of his, an honest fellow, with what is called a

weakness for drink - though it might, in this case, have been
called a strength, for the victim had been drunk for weeks

together without the briefest intermission. To this
unfortunate John intrusted a letter with an inclosure of

bonds, addressed to the bank manager. Even as he did so he
thought he perceived a certain haziness of eye and speech in

his trustee; but he was too hopeful to be stayed, silenced
the voice of warning in his bosom, and with one and the same

gesture committed the money to the clerk, and himself into
the hands of destiny.

I dwell, even at the risk of tedium, on John's minutest
errors, his case being so perplexing to the moralist; but we

have done with them now, the roll is closed, the reader has
the worst of our poor hero, and I leave him to judge for

himself whether he or John has been the less deserving.
Henceforth we have to follow the spectacle of a man who was a

mere whip-top for calamity; on whose unmerited misadventures
not even the humourist can look without pity, and not even

the philosopher without alarm.
That same night the clerk entered upon a bout of drunkenness

so consistent as to surprise even his intimate acquaintance.
He was speedily ejected from the boarding-house; deposited

his portmanteau with a perfect stranger, who did not even
catch his name; wandered he knew not where, and was at last

hove-to, all standing, in a hospital at Sacramento. There,
under the impenetrable ALIAS of the number of his bed, the

crapulous being lay for some more days unconscious of all
things, and of one thing in particular: that the police were

after him. Two months had come and gone before the
convalescent in the Sacramento hospital was identified with

Kirkman, the absconding San Francisco clerk; even then, there
must elapse nearly a fortnight more till the perfect stranger

could be hunted up, the portmanteau recovered, and John's
letter carried at length to its destination, the seal still

unbroken, the inclosure still intact.
Meanwhile, John had gone upon his holidays without a word,

which was irregular; and there had disappeared with him a
certain sum of money, which was out of all bounds of

palliation. But he was known to be careless, and believed to
be honest; the manager besides had a regard for him; and

little was said, although something was no doubt thought,
until the fortnight was finally at an end, and the time had

come for John to reappear. Then, indeed, the affair began to
look black; and when inquiries were made, and the penniless

clerk was found to have amassed thousands of dollars, and
kept them secretly in a rival establishment, the stoutest of

his friends abandoned him, the books were overhauled for
traces of ancient and artful fraud, and though none were

found, there still prevailed a general impression of loss.
The telegraph was set in motion; and the correspondent of the

bank in Edinburgh, for which place it was understood that
John had armed himself with extensive credits, was warned to

communicate with the police.
Now this correspondent was a friend of Mr. Nicholson's; he

was well acquainted with the tale of John's calamitous
disappearance from Edinburgh; and putting one thing with

another, hasted with the first word of this scandal, not to
the police, but to his friend. The old gentleman had long

regarded his son as one dead; John's place had been taken,
the memory of his faults had already fallen to be one of