"A MAN MADE OF MONEY."--DOUGLAS JERROLD.
Knowing that this extraordinary book was illustrated by John Leech, and
hearing that it contained some of his best work, it became my duty to
make a sufficient acquaintance with the book to enable me to criticise
and explain the drawings to my readers. I tried "skimming," but the
power of the book, and the brilliancy of the wit in it, so attracted me
that I read the whole of it.
It is not my province, and it is certainly not in my power, to pose as
a critic of literary work; and the hero--the man made of money, with a
heart made of bank-notes instead of flesh and blood, containing within
himself a bank that could be drawn upon to any amount--is so wonderful a
being as to place him out of the category of human creatures, and
altogether beyond criticism. This gentleman's name was Jericho. He had
waited till he was forty, and then he married a widow with three
children; two of them were girls, the third a young gentleman of whom
those who knew him best said, "He was born for billiards." There was no
love lost between Mr. Jericho and his step-children; in fact, they
cordially hated him, and he returned the compliment. Their name was
Pennibacker, inherited from their father, Captain Pennibacker, whose
loving wife "was made a widow at two-and-twenty by an East Indian
bullet." Mr. Jericho was one of that large class which, though really
needy, manoeuvres successfully to be considered wealthy. His
step-children considered him as "a rich plum-cake, to be sliced openly
or by stealth among them." The widow Pennibacker was first attracted to
him by "a whispered announcement that he was a City gentleman. Hence
Jericho appeared to the imagination of the widow with an indescribable
glory of money about him."
Mrs. Jericho desired to make a few purchases, and she approached her
husband with a cry familiar to most of us:
"'Mr. Jericho, when can you let me have some money?'"
The lady's confidence in her husband's wealth ought to have been shaken
by what followed her application. Mr. Jericho turned a deaf ear to the
appeal, which was repeated in every variety of tone and accent.
At length, "waving her right hand before her husband's face with a
significant and snaky motion," she reiterated her demand with a terrible
calmness:
"'When can I have some money?'
"'Woman!' cried Jericho vehemently, as though at once and for ever he
emptied his heart of the sex; and, rushing from the room, he felt
himself in the flattering vivacity of the moment a single man. 'I'm
sure, after all, I do my best to love the woman,' thought Jericho, 'and
yet she will ask me for money.'"
Disgusted with these unreasonable demands for money, Mr. Jericho
determines to revenge himself by taking a day's pleasure with three
special friends, to be ended by "a quiet banquet at which the human
heart would expand in good fellowship, and where the wine was above
doubt."
The dinner was a great success. It was very late--or rather somewhat
early, as the sparrows were twittering from the eaves--when Mr. Jericho
sought the marital couch, in which, too, his "wife Sabilla" was
evidently "in a sound, deep, sweet sleep."
"Untucking the bed-clothes, and making himself the thinnest slice of a
man, Jericho slides between the sheets; and there he lies feloniously
still, and he thinks to himself--Being asleep, she cannot tell how late
I came to bed. At all events, it is open to dispute, and that is
something.
"'Mr. Jericho, when can you let me have some money?'
"With open eyes, and clearly ringing every word upon the morning air,
did Mrs. Jericho repeat this primal question.
"And what said Jericho? With a sudden qualm at the heart, and with a
stammering tongue, he answered:
"'Why, my dear, I thought you were sound asleep.'"
Here follows a dialogue in the vein of the "Caudle Lectures," in which
Jerrold gives his wit and humour full play. To the perusal of the
"give-and-take" passage of arms I cordially commend my readers. The
dialogue closes with these words:
"'I'm sure it's painful enough to my feelings, and I feel degraded by
the question, nevertheless I must and will ask you--_When will you let
me have some money?_'"
This was the last straw, and Jericho groaned out:
"'I WISH TO HEAVEN I WAS MADE OF MONEY!'"
To which Mrs. Jericho retorted, "in a low, deep, earnest voice:
"'I wish to Heaven you were!'"
Silence came at last, and in the midst of it Jericho "subsided into
muddled sleep; snoring heavily, contemptuously, at the loneliness of his
spouse."
And now _two fleas_--an elder and younger flea--come upon the scene, and
proceed to dine, or sup, upon Mr. Jericho's brow.
A long conversation ensues between these interesting creatures, in which
the elder flea describes to his son how a man's heart was changed into
inexhaustible bank-notes.
"'Miserable race!' said the father flea, with his beautiful bright eye
shining pitifully upon Jericho; 'miserable, craving race, you hear, my
son! Man in his greed never knows when he has wherewithal. He gorges to
gluttony; he drinks to drunkenness; and you heard this wretched fool who
prayed to Heaven to turn him--heart, brain, and all--into a lump of
money.'"
How the operation was effected may be learnt from Mr. Jerrold's book.
One result of it was a most troubled and miserable night to the dreamer
Jericho, whose complaints to his wife when he awoke met with no
sympathy.
"'If I were to live a thousand years, I shouldn't forget last night!'
groaned Jericho.
"'Very likely not,' said Mrs. Jericho; 'I've no doubt you deserve to
remember it. I shouldn't wonder----'"
Mrs. Jericho's want of money is intensified by the wants of her son
Basil, whose luck at billiards may have failed him just when his
creditors were most pressing.
"'Well, what does the old fellow say, the scaly old griffin? What's he
got to answer for himself?'" This was "the sudden question put to Mrs.
Jericho on her return to the drawing-room, after the interview with her
husband. 'Come, what is it? Will he give me some money? In a word,'
asked young hopeful, 'will he go into the melting-pot, like a man and a
father?'
"'My dear Basil, you mustn't ask me,' replied Mrs. Jericho.
"'Oh, mustn't I, though!' cried Basil. 'Ha, you don't know the lot of
people that's asking me; bless you, they ask a hundred times to my
once!'"
The Jerichos have some rich friends, the Carraways, who live in a
mansion called Jogtrot Hall, "the one central grandeur, the boast and
the comfort of the village of Marigolds." To a fete at the Hall comes an
invitation to the Jerichos. It had always been Mrs. Jericho's ambition
that her girls should--"in her own nervous words"--make a blow in
marriage, and she felt that perhaps the time had come. But the girls'
dresses--the "war-paint," as Mr. Basil put it--there was the difficulty,
only to be surmounted by Mr. Jericho's yielding to the repeated cry,
"When will you let me have some money?"
With but faint hopes of success, Mrs. Jericho seeks her husband in his
study. In a long colloquy, she urges the importance of her daughters'
appearance at this "grand party," and the necessity for an advance to
enable them to do so properly. Mr. Jericho turns a deaf ear to her
appeal, till suddenly a wonderful change comes over him.
"Quite a new look of satisfaction gleamed from his eyes, and his mouth
had such a strange smile of compliance! What could ail him?"
The charm was working, the marvellous change was in operation. Mrs.
Jericho fears for her husband's sanity. "'He doesn't look mad,' thought
Mrs. Jericho, a little anxious.
"'I feel as if I had got new blood, new flesh, new bones, new brain!
Wonderful!' Jericho trod up and down the room and snapt his fingers.
'Something's going to happen,' said he."
And something did indeed happen. The transformation was complete; the
hard heart had given place to illimitable money.
"'You will let me have the money?' repeated Mrs. Jericho.
"Jericho answered not a word, but withdrew his hand from his breast.
Between his finger and his thumb he held in silver purity a virgin Bank
of England note for a hundred pounds. Mrs. Jericho ran delightedly off
with the money.
"And Jericho sat with his heart beating faster. Again he placed his hand
to his breast, again drew forth another bank-note. He jumped to his
feet, tore away his dress, and, running to a mirror, saw therein
reflected, not human flesh, but over the region of the heart a loose
skin of bank-paper, veined with marks of ink. He touched it, and still
in his hand lay another note. His thoughtless wish had been wrought into
reality. Solomon Jericho was in very truth a Man made of Money."
The fete at Jogtrot Hall was a great success. The guests were many, and
some of them distinguished. The Honourable Mr. Candytuft, Colonel Bones,
Commissioner Thrush, and Dr. Mizzlemist, of Doctors' Commons, must be
noted, as they have to be dealt with pictorially by Leech hereafter.
After a variety of entertainments, some twenty or thirty hungry guests
graced a table under a long, wide tent, on which "there were the most
delicious proofs of the earth's goodness, with every kitchen mystery."
The host, Mr. Carraway, took the head of the table; Mr. Jericho,
"dignified and taciturn, graced the board." The orator on the occasion
was Dr. Mizzlemist, who had been seized with a passion to drink
everybody's health. For the third time he rose to give "the health of
Solomon Jericho, Esquire, an honour to his country."
"In the course of his speech the Doctor delivered himself with so much
energy that at the same time he stuck the fork, which had served him in
emphasizing the Jericho virtues, between the bones of Mr. Jericho's
right hand, pinning it where it lay.
"'It is nothing,' said the philosophic Jericho."
The change in Mr. Jericho's appearance, from the full-faced,
healthy-looking individual of Leech's first drawing, to the spare,
hollow-cheeked man at the banquet, is to be accounted for by the fact
that, after each application to the strange bank established in Mr.
Jericho's breast, his whole form shrinks; he becomes thinner and
thinner, to the alarm of his tailor, who "says, as he measures the
changed man:
"'Six inches less round the body, as I'm a sinner! Six inches less, Mr.
Jericho, and I last took your measure six weeks ago.'"
At the Carraway fete the Misses Jericho made, and improved, the
acquaintance of the Hon. Mr. Candytuft, and of an incredible idiot, Sir
Arthur Homadod. The idiot was as beautiful as he was foolish; he was
therefore handsome beyond the dreams of beauty. Whatever had taken the
place of the mind in the baronet was impressed by Miss Agatha
Pennibacker, and that virgin's heart being free, she lost it to Sir
Arthur. The Hon. Mr. Candytuft, having an eye to the enormous fortune
supposed to be possessed by Mr. Jericho, and being desirous to secure
the portion of it that would of course fall to his step-daughter, made
love to Miss Monica with considerable success.
In the meantime the ladies wish to go to Court; in this they are
encouraged by Candytuft; and, to enable them to make a proper figure
there, costly jewels are required. To Candytuft and Jericho enter Mrs.
J., "with a magnificent suite of jewels.
"'Aren't they beautiful, my dear Solomon?' said she....
"'You know, my dear,' said Mrs. Jericho, in her sweetest, most
convincing voice, 'it would be impossible to go to Court without
diamonds. One isn't dressed without diamonds.'
"'Court!' Jericho opened his eyes, and a wan smile broke on his thin,
blank cheek. 'Are you going to Court?'
"'Why, of course--are we not, dear Mr. Candytuft? What would be thought
of us if we did not pay our homage to----'
"The sentence was broken by the sudden appearance of Monica and Agatha,
each bearing a jewel-case, and looking radiant with the possession.
"'Thank you, dear papa,' said Monica, curtseying and smiling her best to
Jericho.
"'They're beautiful. Thank you--dear, dearest papa,' cried the more
impulsive Agatha.
"'Look!' said Monica, and she exhibited her treasure.
"'Look!' cried Agatha, and she half dropped upon one knee, on the other
side, to show her jewels.
"'Beautiful!' cried Candytuft. 'Pray, ladies, don't stir.'
"The girls, with pretty wonder on their faces, kept their positions on
either side of Jericho.
"'My dear madam'--and Candytuft appealed to Mrs. Jericho--'is not this
a delightful group--an exquisite family picture? It ought to be
painted.'"
[Illustration: _A Family Picture._]
Mr. Candytuft is right. The graceful figures of the girls, the
attenuated figure of papa, in whose hopeless expression one sees the
dread of further attenuation, together with his own perfect presentment,
would make--indeed, does make--an admirable picture. The jewels cost one
thousand pounds: ten calls have to be made upon the supernatural bank.
They are made, and the jeweller is paid. And the result! For some
minutes after the departure of the tradesman Jericho sat motionless--all
but breathless. He would, however, know his fate. He took out the silk
lace with which an hour ago he had measured his chest. Again he passed
it round his body. He had drawn upon the bank, and he had shrunk an
inch.
Truly he was a man made of money--money was the principle of his being,
for with every note he paid away a portion of his life.
Poor Mr. Carraway was ruined through no fault of his own. Jogtrot Hall
was sold, and Jericho bought it. Thirty thousand pounds' worth of flesh
had he sacrificed to buy to himself a country mansion. He had become a
member of Parliament, and at the same time become so thin that his
tailor declared, "It's like measuring a penknife for a sheath." "Why,"
said the tailor to his wife, "he isn't a man at all, but a cotton-pod.
He can't have no more stomach than a 'bacco-pipe." In fact, it was the
growing belief of a large circle that Jericho was no flesh, no man, at
all. "He was made up of coats," ran the rumour, "like an onion."
The insolence that is sometimes the accompaniment of great riches took
full possession of Mr. Jericho, and he found an occasion to treat
Colonel Bones to a specimen of it. Almost without provocation the
Colonel was called "a toad-eater! a bone-picking pauper!" etc. For this
insult the Colonel declared he would have Mr. Jericho's blood, and in
pursuance of that object he sent the millionaire a challenge. Jericho
fought very hard to avoid fighting, but his second, Mr. Candytuft,
prevailed, and the belligerents met in Battersea Fields. Mr.
Commissioner Thrush waited upon the angry Colonel, and the celebrated
Dr. Dodo was there to attend to the wounded. The seconds confer; the men
are placed. Candytuft looked at them with an eye of admiration. The
signal was given.
"Colonel Bones fires, and his ball goes clear through Jericho's bosom,
knocking off a button in its passage, and striking itself flat against a
pile of bricks."
"'A dead man!' cried the doctor, running to Jericho.
"'My friend,' exclaimed Candytuft, 'have you made your will?'
"'Eh? What's the matter?' said Jericho.
"'Matter!' exclaimed Dr. Dodo, and he pointed his cane to the hole in
the front of Jericho's coat, immediately over the region of his heart.
'Matter! It's the first time I ever heard a man with a bullet clean
through his breast ask--What's the matter!'"
The Colonel's ball had passed through Jericho's bank-note-paper breast,
and Jericho lived and moved and was none the worse for it. Jericho fired
in the air.
An ugly atmosphere was collecting about Mr. Jericho, and he was aware of
it. "His own family saw in him a man of mysterious attributes. Monica
turned pale at the smallest courtesy of her parent, and Agatha, suddenly
meeting him on the staircase, squealed and ran away as from a fiend.
"Mr. Jericho went on a rejoicing conqueror. His huge town mansion,
burning with gold--massive, rich, and gorgeous; for the Man of Money was
far the most substantial, the most potent development of his creed,
whereby to awe and oppress his worshippers----"
Mrs. Jericho had made up her mind that it was time her daughters were
"settled in life, and she said as much to her husband."
"'Your girls, my dear, have my free permission to settle when and where
they like,' said the husband.
"But in sounding Mr. Jericho as to his intentions in the matter of
settlements, she could make no way whatever. At last she put the
point-blank question:
"'What do you propose to give the dear child?' (alluding to Monica, for
whose hand Candytuft was about to ask).
"'Give! I'll give a magnificent party on the occasion.'
"'But the dowry; what dowry do you give?'
"'Dowry! I thought, my dear, you observed marriage was no bargain? Why,
you're making it quite a ready-money transaction!'"
At this point the conversation was interrupted by Mr. Candytuft, who,
before advocating his own case, warmly espoused that of his foolish
friend, Sir Arthur Homadod, the accepted of Agatha.
"'He's as bashful as--as--upon my life I am at a loss for a simile. And
as he and I are old friends, and as he knew that I should see you--in
fact, he's in the house at this moment, and came along with me--he
desired me to inform you that Miss Agatha had consented to fix
the--the--what d'ye call it--the happy day.'
"'Wish them joy,' said Jericho.
"'As to the young lady's dowry?' hesitated Candytuft.
"'I can't give a farthing; can't afford it, my dear Candytuft.'"
The ambassador then speaks for himself:
"'You may have remarked my affection for Miss Monica? You must have
remarked it?'
"'I beg a thousand pardons,' said the wag Jericho, 'but it has quite
escaped me.'
"Candytuft wanly smiled.
"'In a word, my dear sir, we have come to the sweet conclusion that we
were made for one another.'
"'Dear me! Well, how lucky you should have met!'"
Mr. Candytuft beats about the bush for awhile, but at last comes
abruptly to the point, saying:
"'I _must_ ask--you force me to be plain--what will you give with the
young lady?'
"'Not a farthing!' cried Jericho. 'Not one farthing!' said the man of
money with determined emphasis.
"'What is the matter?' said Mrs. Jericho, who entered the room at this
juncture.
"'Pooh! you know well enough,' cried Jericho. 'Mr. Candytuft wants to
marry rich; but that's not all--he wants to be handsomely paid for the
trouble.'"
After awhile Jericho affects to agree to dower his step-daughter, and he
says:
"'Let us settle the sum, eh! Well, then, what sum would satisfy you?'"
It was a delicate question to put thus nakedly.
"'Come, name a figure. Say five thousand pounds.'"
Candytuft looked blankly at Jericho, moving not a muscle.
"'What do you say to seven?'
"Candytuft gently lifted his eyebrows, deprecating the amount.
"'Come, then, we'll advance to ten?'
"The lover's face began to thaw, and he showed some signs of kindly
animation.
"'At a word, then,' cried Jericho with affected heartiness, 'will you
take fifteen thousand?'
"'From you--yes,' cried Candytuft; and he seized Jericho's hand.
"The man of money looked at Candytuft with a contemptuous sneer, and
with a wrench twisted his hand away. He then dropped into a chair, and a
strange, diabolical scowl possessed his countenance. The man of money
looked like a devil.
"'And where--where do you think this money is to come from? Where?'
asked Jericho, and he rose from his chair, and it seemed as though the
demon possessing him would compel the wretch to talk--would compel him
to make terrible revelations. Each word he uttered was born of agony.
But there he stood, forced to give utterances that tortured him. 'I will
tell you,' roared Jericho, 'what this money is. Look about you! What do
you see?--fine pictures, fine everything. Why, you see me--tortured,
torn, worked up, changed. The walls are hung with my flesh--my flesh you
walk upon. I am worn piecemeal by a hundred thieves, but I'll be shared
among them no longer.'"
By this time the girls and Sir Arthur Homadod, alarmed by the cries of
Jericho, had entered the room.
"'And you had a fine feast, had you not?' cried the possessed man of
money, writhing with misery and howling his confession. 'And what did
you eat?--my flesh. What did you drink?--my blood!'"
It would be impossible to imagine a more satisfactory realization of
this powerful scene than Leech's rendering of it. The shrinking figure
of Candytuft as he retreats before the fury of the moneyed man; the
awful passion of the shrivelled Jericho; above all, the vacuous
expression of Sir Arthur, all are done to perfection and without
exaggeration. Beyond the endeavour to make the meaning of the
illustrations in the "Man made of Money" clear to my readers, I have
little or nothing to do with the story. I may note, however, that young
Basil Pennibacker falls in love with Bessy, the pretty daughter of the
ruined merchant Carraway, and that bold bankrupt, who is about to seek a
new fortune at the Antipodes, calls upon Jericho to ask his consent to
his stepson's marriage. How the announcement of the engagement was
received may be imagined, or if my reader be not satisfied with his idea
of what may have taken place, he can read in Mr. Jerrold's book how Mr.
Carraway was met by his old friend. He will also find an illustration of
an interview between "The Pauper and the Man of Money," but as I do not
think it quite worthy of Leech, I do not reproduce it. I may as well add
that Basil--who turns out to be a very good fellow--does marry Bessy,
and the happy pair, with the parent pair of Carraways, depart for
Australia in the good ship _Halcyon_.
Mr. Jericho's explosion, and his unpleasant conduct
generally--especially regarding Monica's dowry--had altered Mr.
Candytuft's matrimonial intentions for the present: there were delays.
"He had suddenly discovered some dormant right to some long-forgotten
property, and he meant to secure that, and lay it as an offering at the
feet of his bride." How the foolish Sir Arthur agreed to marry Agatha
without a dowry, to the intense delight of Jericho--how splendid
preparations for the wedding were made--how the wedding-party, Jericho
included, waited at the church for the bridegroom, who never came (he
had overslept himself in consequence of an overdose of medicine taken to
steady his nerves)--for these details my reader is again referred to Mr.
Jerrold, who describes the whole most enjoyably. Leech draws the baronet
awakened by his servant, but too late: the canonical hour has passed. A
report was spread that Sir Arthur had taken poison to avoid the Jericho
connection.
Just at this time Mr. Jericho was offered a most satisfactory
mortgage--so any way there was land for his money--no less than
five-and-forty thousand pounds, by his friend the Duke of St. George.
Jericho lent the money, in the hope of climbing into the House of Lords
with the assistance of the Duke; but this last drain upon his resources,
with its penalty of attenuation, had left very little of him to go
anywhere.
"He had shrunk," says the author. "How horribly he had dwindled, how
wretchedly small he had become! Ay, how small! He would measure himself,
he would know the exact waste. Whereupon Jericho took the silken cord
and passed it round his breast. Why, it would twice encircle him--twice!
and a piece to spare. With horror and loathing he flung the cord into
the fire. He would never again take damning evidence against himself."
It became evident to Jericho that, if he desired to retain enough of his
person to enable his friends and relations to recognise him, the drain
upon the chest notes must cease.
"He would, therefore, not draw another note--no, not another. He would
live upon what he had. He would turn the foolish superfluities about him
into hard, tangible money."
Bent upon turning everything belonging not only to himself, but to his
wife and daughters, into cash, he sent for Mrs. Jericho.
"The trembling wife had scarcely power to meet the eyes of her
helpmate. In two days twenty years seemed to have gathered upon him. His
face looked brown, thin, and withered as last year's leaf. His whole
body bent and swayed like a piece of paper moved by the air. As he held
his hand aloof, the light shone through it. It was plain there was some
horrid compact between her lord and the infernal powers, or--it was all
as one--the tyranny of conscience had worn him to his present condition.
"'Mrs. Jericho, madam, you will instantly bring me all your
diamonds--jewellery--all. Give like orders to your daughters, the
mincing harpies that eat me.'"
The terrified woman remonstrated, asked for an explanation, offered to
send for the doctor.
"'Away with you! do as I command. Bring me all your treasures--all. And
your minxes! See that they obey me too, and instantly.'
"'Yes, my love, to be sure,' said Mrs. Jericho, for she was all but
convinced that Solomon's reason was gone or going. It was best to humour
him. 'And why, my love, do you wish for these things? Of course you
shall have them, but why?'
"'To turn them into money, madam,' cried Jericho, rubbing his hands.
'We have had enough of the tomfoolery of wealth--I now begin to hunger
for the substance. I'll do without fashion. I'll have power,
madam--power!'"
The conversation continued, and Mrs. Jericho became more and more
convinced that her husband was mad.
"'Oh that Dr. Stubbs would make a morning call!' silently prayed the
wife."
The man of money, having determined to dismantle his house and send his
wife and daughters adrift, retired with one servant, all the rest being
discharged, into "one of his garrets, a den of a place," where the
scullion had slept. The servant was the pauper grandfather of one of his
footmen, an old man of "congenial weakness with Jericho. Indeed, there
looked between them a strange similitude, twin brethren damned to the
like sordidness, the like rapacity."
Jericho had nicknamed the old man Plutus. Jericho and Plutus were in
face and expression as like as two snakes.
Mrs. Jericho, assured of her husband's madness, took counsel with her
friends. Drs. Stubbs and Mizzlemist, Colonel Bones, Commissioner Thrush,
and Candytuft met in conclave and listened to Mrs. Jericho's account of
her husband's ravings; but she failed to convince the doctors that what
a jury would consider insanity, was apparent in anything that the man of
money had said or done. As Dr. Mizzlemist delivered this opinion, a
crash was heard in an adjoining room--another, and another, and then a
loud triumphant laugh from the throat of Jericho.
Wife and daughters, with jury of friends, started to their feet.
Candytuft, ere he was aware--for had he reflected "a moment, he would as
soon have unbarred a lion's cage--opened the doors. And there stood
Jericho, laden with spoil."
Though Mr. Jericho was voted sane by the doctors, his conduct displayed
a brutality for which madness would be the only excuse. The Jews were
coming, everything was to be sold.
"'Why stay you here?' cried the man of money to his wife. 'Why will you
not be warned? In a few hours there will not be a bed for your fine
costly bones to lie upon. Now will you depart?'"
The Jews wandered about the rooms, appraising everything. Jericho was
anxious to avoid a "public hubbub," as he called a sale.
"'I want,' said he to the brokers, 'at a thought, to melt all you see,
and have seen, into ready money. Take counsel together, I say, and make
me an offer, a lumping offer, for the whole--eh?'"
[Illustration: "_And there stood Jericho._"]
The man of money ascended to his garret and awaited the Jews' offer,
which was promised for the evening. He was alone, "evening closed in,
and the moon rose and looked reproachfully at the miser."
The garret door opened, and Plutus appeared.
"'Well, has it come?' cried the master.
"'Here it is,' answered the servant, as he laid a letter upon the table.
"'Well, now for their conscience!' exclaimed the man of money."
Light was required; there was a candle upon the table, and paper
prepared to light it.
"Most precious paper--the heart's flesh and blood of the man of money!
For the devilish serving-man had folded a note (how obtained can it
matter?)--a note peeled from the breast of his master, a piece of money,
a part of the damned Jericho sympathizing with him.
"The man of money took the paper--the devil, with his ear upturned,
crept closer to the door--and thrust it amidst the dying coals. A
moment, and the garret is rent as with a lightning flash.
"Yelling, and all on fire, the man of money falls prostrate with hell
in his face. Then his lips move, but not a sound is heard. And the fire
communicated by the sympathy of the living note--the flesh of his
flesh--like a snake of flame glides up his limbs, devouring them. And so
he is consumed: a minute, and the man of money is a thin black paper
ash. Now the night wind stirs it, and now a sudden breeze carries the
cinereous corpse away, fluttering it to dust impalpable."