I shall not describe my feelings when I found myself in a cage in
Cursitor-street, instead of that fine house in Berkeley Square, which
was to have been mine as the husband of Mrs. Manasseh. What a palace!—in
an odious, dismal street leading from Chancery Lane,—a hideous Jew boy
opened the second of three doors; and shut it when Mr. Nabb and I
(almost fainting) had entered: then he opened the third door, and then I
was introduced to a filthy place, called a coffee-room, which I
exchanged for the solitary comfort of a little dingy back-parlour, where
I was left for a while to brood over my miserable fate. Fancy the change
between this and Berkeley Square! Was I, after all my pains, and
cleverness, and perseverance, cheated at last? Had this Mrs. Manasseh
been imposing upon me, and were the words of the wretch I met at the
_table-d'hôte_ at Leamington, only meant to mislead me and take me in? I
determined to send for my wife, and know the whole truth. I saw at once
that I had been the victim of an infernal plot, and that the carriage,
the house in town, the West India fortune, were only so many lies which
I had blindly believed. It was true the debt was but a hundred and fifty
pounds: and I had two thousand at my bankers. But was the loss of _her_
£80,000 nothing? Was the destruction of my hopes nothing?—The accursed
addition to my family of a Jewish wife, and three Jewish children,
nothing? And all these I was to support out of my two thousand pounds. I
had better have stopped at home, with my mamma and sisters, whom I
really did love, and who produced me eighty pounds a-year.
I had a furious interview with Mrs. Stubbs; and when I charged her, the
base wretch! with cheating me, like a brazen serpent, as she was, she
flung back the cheat in my teeth, and swore I had swindled her. Why did
I marry her, when she might have had twenty others? She only took me,
she said, because I had twenty thousand pounds. I _had_ said I possessed
that sum; but in love, you know, and war, all's fair.
We parted quite as angrily as we met; and I cordially vowed that when I
had paid the debt into which I had been swindled by her, I would take my
£2,000, and depart to some desert island; or, at the very least, to
America, and never see her more, or any of her Israelitish brood. There
was no use in remaining in the sponging-house (for I knew that there
were such things as detainers, and that where Mrs. Stubbs owed a hundred
pounds, she might owe a thousand), so I sent for Mr. Nabb, and tendering
him a cheque for £150, and his costs, requested to be let out forthwith.
"Here, fellow," said I, "is a cheque on Child's for your paltry sum."
"It may be a shech on Shild's," says Mr. Nabb, "but I should be a baby
to let you out on such a paper as dat."
"Well," said I, "Child's is but a step from this; you may go and get the
cash,—just giving me an acknowledgment."
Nabb drew out the acknowledgment with great punctuality, and set off for
the Bankers, whilst I prepared myself for departure from this abominable
prison.
He smiled as he came in. "Well," said I, "you have touched your money;
and now, I must tell you, that you are the most infernal rogue and
extortioner I ever met with."
"O no, mishter Shtubbsh," says he, grinning still, "dere is som greater
roag dan me,—mosh greater."
"Fellow," says I, "don't stand grinning before a gentleman; but give me
my hat and cloak, and let me leave your filthy den."
"Shtop, Shtubbsh," says he, not even Mistering me this time, "here ish a
letter, vich you had better read."