OF THE PARENTAGE AND NAME OF A SWINDLER—OF HIS EQUIPAGE—OF HIS MORAL
PHILOSOPHY
THE professor of our distinguished art has, it must be conceded, this
peculiar and most grateful advantage—he may choose his ancestors. With
the _Peerage_ or the _Red Book_ open before him, it lies within his own
breast to decide whether he shall have come from the loins of a Norman
baron—of one of the boldest of that invincible band of marauders and
thieves who jumped on Hastings beach—or whether he shall be the last of
a collateral branch of the Strozzi, or Frangepani, or of any other
Italian house whose beginning, in the opinion of divers heralds, dates
from beyond Numa. Here is a glorious prerogative! The swindler may make
his own coat-of-arms, although his immediate father walked the earth
without a shirt. Show me any other man possessing so delicious a
privilege. With long rolls of knights and barons, and earls and princes
before him, how the swindler may play the epicure with the mighty dead!
How loftily, yet how serenely, may he contemplate the titled dust of
bygone generations! Even as your dainty snuff-taker coquets with a dozen
samples of the odoriferous tobacco, so may the swindler, pondering on a
choice of father and mother, taste with his moral sense the various
claims of buried greatness. Now, he likes this Prince’s mixture—and now
this. He is puzzled, perplexed by the hundred appeals to his filial
affection. He is one minute determined to have come from the
Montmorencys—the next, he feels a yearning towards the Talbots—and in a
few seconds, lo! he will make a kindred to himself from the golden line
of D’Este. If the reader possess imagination—and if he do not I tremble
for my book—he must sympathise with the delightful tumult in the
swindler’s brain and breast, or rather brain alone—(for with your true
swindler the brain must have played the Aaron’s rod with the heart,
swallowing it whole; a miracle very often performed in the anatomy of
great public men)—he must feel more than commonly interested in the
contest which is to decide the parentage of our hero. With this allusion
to the delicacy of the juncture, we leave the swindler at his books,
merely impressing upon him the necessity of choosing a long way back—of
electing an ancestor from some by-way catacomb—some seldom visited
cemetery—some “untrod on corner i’ the earth.” Nor let him despair;
there are at least a round thousand or two of dukes and princes
sufficiently obscure in their winding-sheets, albeit possibly brave and
blatant enough when in the flesh, from whom the swindler may scratch out
a great progenitor. All that is necessary is that the beginner of the
family shall have lived in the dim twilight of civilisation—that he
shall be so far away that all the Herald’s Colleges, with all their
spectacles upon their collective noses, shall not be able to perceive
whether the disentombed thing be flesh or phantom. Very satisfactory
progenitors have been found, with arms to match, of thew and sinew just
as questionable. If, however, the swindler _will_ have a mighty
ancestor, let him, I repeat, go far enough for him: when a man wants a
marquis, or an earl, or a count, for his great-grandfather, he should
not grudge a long walk—even though he walk blindfold and backwards—for
the commodity. So much for the ambitious swindler.
The swindler, however, who trusts to his unassisted genius, and disdains
the lustre of any specious trophies from the churchyard, may with a very
laudable pride refuse to make to himself a grandfather, being possibly
contented with the grandsire selected by his grandmother for him. Some
men—and let me do all homage to their simplicity—turn up their noses at
the genealogical tree, even though its roots were struck at Tyburn: the
swindler of sanguine spirit may be of this proud kidney; and all the
better: I augur more of his ultimate triumph. However, though he shall
refuse a herald-begotten progenitor, it may be highly necessary for him
that he shall choose a name. His own may have become celebrated for
family achievements wide away of his purpose; and therefore, whilst with
filial affection he sticks to his own father and mother, disdaining the
blood of Norman, Guelph, or Ghibelline—it may be imperative upon him to
assume a nominal device not hitherto borne by any of his kin. The
swindler wants a name. Here, then, we approach a delicate, yes, a
difficult point. Let me, however, set out with a solemn injunction to
the swindler, that in the choice of a name “he throw away ambition.”
Considerable nicety is required in the selection of a good title for
swindling; a number of fine young fellows having—if I may lighten the
solemnity of this essay with a familiar phrase—“let the cat out of the
bag” by the incautious assumption of a high-sounding, flowery,
no-meaning patronymic. The truth is, the detestable rage for novels has
so familiarised the world with a set of sugar-and-water heroes—of
exquisite gentlemen, all of them worthy of a glass case lest the flies
should soil them—that their very excess of virtue has put them on the
hue and cry of suspicion. Hence “_Delacour_,” “_Erpingham_,”
“_Rosenthorp_,” “_Millefleur_,” and a thousand others of the courtly and
sweet-smelling class, all in their time excellent names for swindling
(that is, for swindling in the higher sense of the term, for in “fine
wire wove” they swindle still), are now no other than brands,
_stigmata_, by which the calling of the professor is instantly
suspected. Hence, my dear pupil, take no sweet, pastry-cook name from a
novel; cull no flower from a play-bill; but look, as either a poet or a
member of Parliament says, I forget which, “look abroad into
universality” for the thing desired. As you walk the street cast your
eyes above the door of the worthy shopkeeper. A thousand to one that in
a day’s saunter you will possess yourself, and from such a source, of a
name in every respect unexceptionable. Yes, from the board of the
thriving, honest, painstaking, till-respecting tradesman. And if so, how
ingenious, how pleasant withal, to obtain one of your best weapons from,
so to speak, the armoury of the enemy, to be fleshed immediately upon
him! It is perhaps unnecessary to warn the young swindler that he must
not be too homely in his choice. There is a class of names which, from
their very abundance, makes it a matter of constructive ignominy to
swindle under them. And some of these are Jones, Walsh, Welsh, Thomson,
Johnson, Dobson, White, Brown, Williams, Simpson, Smithson, and that
multitudinous monosyllable, Smith! If, in a moment of hilarity you break
a lamp, wrench off a knocker, or snap a bell wire, why any one of these
names may be, as of course every gentleman well knows, confidently given
in to the night constable; but to attempt to swindle under them betrays
a petty larceny spirit in the professor, from which my experience looks
for little present gain or future reputation. No; the name of a swindler
should be like the wardrobe of the true gentleman—a thing not
challenging vulgar attention; but, if examined, found to be of the very
best material and of the choicest workmanship. Hence let the swindler
choose between a _clinquant_ (I do believe this is almost the first bit
of French appearing in the essay, for the which I confess myself
deficient in the graces of modern literature[16]), between the
_clinquant_ of novel heroes and the homeliness of “base mechanics”—let
his name be a solid, substantial, downright English name.
Footnote 16:
The Captain is in error. Though his essay is, assuredly, barren of
“the tongues,” the author knows more of bookmaking than he apparently
chooses to confess.—[JOHN JACKDAW, Ed.]
[Illustration:
“Any one of these names maybe confidently given to the night
constable”
]
I say English, for I think we have had too long a peace to render the
assumption of a foreign title and a foreign accent worth the trouble,
the incessant watchfulness, the continual stretch of a man’s intellects:
the call upon his faculties to keep up the character should be well
rewarded, for the hazard of self-discovery is very great. I know a
remarkable instance of the danger. There was Thaddeus Ballynamuck—he
once, with merely a backward touch of his hand, broke the jaw of the
manager of a minor theatre who dared to offer him terms to bring him out
as a Patagonian giant—there was Thaddeus, who had made a splendid six
weeks’ campaign at the West-end as an Italian count; how admirably did
he with the _lingua Toscana_ flavour his native Connaught! The Duke of
Tuscany was his dear friend; and not without reason; for Thaddeus at a
boar hunt had stood between the boar and the duke, receiving the tusks
of the beast in his hunting jacket, for the which he had obtained a
great many Italian orders, and on the strength of which he gave a great
many English ones. Well, Thaddeus, though considered as true an Italian
as the poet Asso,[17] was one morning driven to the necessity of shaving
himself, changing his southern name, and retiring for a few weeks to the
privacy of Southend. He was betrayed into self-discovery by an excess of
benevolence—the more was the pity. Thus it was. He always carried in his
cab a beautiful dove-coloured Italian greyhound, its legs not much
thicker than goose quills, and its tail like bent wire—the gift of the
Marchesa di Lungabarba. The dog had leaped from the cab and followed its
master into the office of Finings, the wine merchant. Thaddeus had
before very considerably patronised Finings, and was about to give him a
splendid order for some choice port to be shipped to his friend the
duke—and how the eyes of Finings twinkled at the title of his
highness!—when the cellarman, a brawny, heavy fellow from Somerset,
shambled into the office and trod, with all his fourteen stone, upon the
delicate toes of Angelo the greyhound: the dog howled with agony
piercing enough to crack the parchment heart of an old maid, when the
Captain—he was, at the moment, with the greatest difficulty endeavouring
to make himself understood to the wine merchant—turned round, and, to
the astonishment of Finings, fulminating a string of oaths in the very
purest Connaught, dealt a blow on the breast of the cellarman that sent
him prostrate on three dozen of choice brandy—picked samples for the
dowager Lady Drinkwater—to their utter destruction, and to the exceeding
surprise of the wine merchant, who had never in all his life heard an
Italian count vituperate such beautiful, such unadulterate Irish. I will
not continue the story: Thaddeus Ballynamuck, though an admirable
artist, fell a victim to the exuberance of his feelings; as a swindler
he was professionally killed by Angelo, the late Marchesa di
Lungabarba’s greyhound.
Footnote 17:
The Captain doubtless means Tasso—[JOHN JACKDAW, Ed.].
I have narrated this little history that it may serve as an illustration
of the perils besetting an honest, simple, guileless Englishman who
might wish to swindle as an exotic. There is, it must be allowed,
unnecessary peril in the experiment; besides I question if it be not
unpatriotic. Why defraud our mother country of the advantage of our
reputation? Why, with ungrateful, with unfilial hand add a leaf to the
laurel of Germany—of France—of Italy—of Russia? No; for a true born
Briton to swindle as a noble from the Hartz mountains—as a count from
Paris—a Roman count—or a prince from St Petersburg—is poor, shuffling,
shabby, or, if I may use a term which I am proud to find of late very
current among politicians and political writers (for the classes are
more distinct than people are prone to imagine)—it is _Un-English_.
America, however, has her claims upon us. The swindler may, and with
profit, prove his recollection of the ties that once bound Columbia to
Britain—may gratefully acknowledge a sense of the relationship between
the mother and the daughter country, by swindling as a gentleman with
enormous possessions in New York, or, what is still better, in Virginia.
Here the many-sided philosopher cannot fail to recognise a new advantage
in a community of language. The _soi-disant_ (hem! French again!), the
_soi-disant_ American swindler may avenge the injuries of a greyhound on
the person of a cellarman, yet run no risk of discovery. He may still
run up and down the gamut of execration and not betray himself. Think of
this, youthful swindler. Besides, there is another great temptation to
offer this passing honour to America. Her unsettled currency affords the
swindler a hundred plausible excuses if—for such improprieties do occur
at the London Hotel, Grillon’s, the Clarendon, all the very best of
houses—if rudely pressed to show those credentials of gentility which
even the rudest and the most illiterate never fail to acknowledge. Thus
the swindler may for a time throw himself upon the banks: and this the
more safely if he have displayed a handful of letters of introduction (a
few to the royal household), all easily manufactured, and all, for the
time, as good as letters of credit. There is another very practicable
deceit. He may, on the night of his arrival in London, have his pocket
picked of certain Government securities, and, having made the keeper of
the hotel the depository of his secret, straightway advertise the loss
in all the papers. This, I confess, is a ticklish experiment, demanding
the finest self-possession, the greatest delicacy to carry it into
successful operation; and if the youthful swindler have any doubts of
himself, I charge him by his hopes of future profit and reputation not
to think of hazarding it. Should he, however, succeed, and the landlord
advance liberally, he may condescend to express his best wishes for the
prosperity of his host, and more, may invite himself to dine with him.
Great caution, however, is to be used before there be any advance to
such familiarity; and yet I once knew a gentleman from Natchez who
obtained unlimited credit from his host—the pot-house keeper was
musical—by insisting upon it that he made Dibdin’s “Lovely Nan” by the
very force of expression remarkably like Rossini. So far, all was well;
but, forgetful of what was due to himself as a swindler,—in the genial
atmosphere of a domestic hearth letting himself down to the level of his
host—the foolish fellow suffered himself to play at cribbage with his
landlord; a man who had spent at least half of his long and useful life,
pegging. Game after game the landlord’s doubts increased: and at length
he rose from the table with a blank in his face, and all the swindler’s
bill in his heart. “I’m done—I know I’m done!” cried the host with a
groan. “I must be done, for no true gentleman could ever beat me at
cribbage.” At least one month’s board and lodging, besides the greatest
of all advantages, the first-rate reference to shopkeepers, did my
friend from Natchez lose by his skill at cribbage. It is true when hard
pressed he talked a great deal about the last failure of the cotton
crop—an excellent theme, by the way—but in this case he talked to the
winds, or, what was much worse, to a man obstinate upon his bill. My
friend had to make an ignominious retreat, leaving behind him all his
goods generously subscribed for him by the ingenuous West-end
shopkeepers.
Notwithstanding this, the swindler may for a time take America for his
country. The trick is by no means over-done. If, however, the swindler
make the election—if he resolve upon becoming a gentleman of enormous
fortune from the United States—he had better choose the South, and,
above all things, he must not forget the cotton crop. As it once
happened at New Orleans, much execution may, even in London, be done
upon the enemy from behind cotton bags. As for his rank, the swindler
should not venture beyond that of colonel—yes, a colonel and a great
grower of cotton.
We next come to a most important subject—the dress of the swindler. The
present age judges of the condition of men as we judge of the condition
of cats—by the sleekness, the gloss of their coats. Hence, in even what
is called a respectable walk of life, with men of shallow pockets and
deep principles, it is of the first importance to their success that, if
they would obtain three hundred per annum, they must at least look as if
they were in receipt of seven. Very many stoical privations are endured
for this great purpose. How many a fine hungry fellow carries his dinner
upon his back—his breakfast in his beaver—his supper in his boots! The
Hottentot is not the only human animal that clothes itself with the cost
of bowels. The swindler, however, is not—fate forbid that it should be
so!—called upon to make the same sacrifice required every day in London
of the poor, friendless student—of the miserable, unknown artist—the
juvenile surgeon, panting for a practice—the barrister, without a
fee—the curate, with lips hungering for even locusts and wild honey—the
thousands of God’s most helpless creatures, gentlemen, born with a
silver spoon, but left by fortune at their maturity without any
employment for knife and fork—no, no, it is the purpose, the triumph of
swindling to put its professors in purple and fine linen, and to make
“their eyes red with wine and their teeth white with milk.” They have to
dress well, not to keep up the barren name of gentleman, but to flourish
as swindlers. Poor Dactyl, the poet—astonishing truth!—is too proud to
take credit for a hat—too poor to buy one—and too high-spirited to nod
to his old college friends in a rusty beaver. Will the reader listen to
a fact? What does Dactyl? Why, he makes a compromise with his
magnanimity—he over-persuades himself that his beaver is as yet
tolerably jetty, since all the summer he has once a day sponged it with
a damp sponge, and kept religiously upon the shady side of the pavement.
I mention this wretched shift of a pusillanimous spirit to show to the
young swindler what might be his fate if, with a pertinacity only found
in simpletons of the very first class, he would resolve to live the
gentleman upon the revenue of the chameleon; and, with not a sixpence in
his pocket, would be sufficiently mad to rave about honour in his bosom.
What is the reward of such obstinacy—what the goal of men so honourably
idle—so perversely pure? What the end? Go,—ask it of the Thames! Put the
question to the Serpentine—the New River—the canals! Mutter the query as
you pause at the gunsmith’s—as you linger at the chemist’s! Ask, as you
see whisk by you the chariot of the coroner!
I had not touched upon this mean-spirited class of bipeds—of the
species, many of whom die off in honourable poverty, and many in a
dishonourable horse-pond—did not swindling save a third portion of the
body from a life of starvation and an end of vulgar misery. The good,
indulgent parents who, in submission, as they conceive, to the high
civilisation of the day, will rather let their sons be nothing if they
cannot put them in a fair way to become archbishops, chancellors, and
commanders-in-chief, owe much to swindling, for—urbane goddess!—how
often does she take the pet of the fireside—the darling of the chimney
corner—the pretty prodigal, when plucked of every feather by the
jackdaws[18] of the town, and make of him again a bird of finest
plumage. Yes, thousands and thousands of young gentlemen, shamefully
deserted by their parents when they had not a farthing more to leave
them, and—wanting a calling—with nothing to do, have been received with
open arms by the tenderest of foster-mothers; and not only once more set
upon their legs, but, perhaps, for the first time in their lives, put
into their own cabriolets! Little thinks the plodding tradesman,
determined upon making Tom a gentleman, that his dear boy may owe all
the external appearances of that character to nought but swindling. But
I have wandered.
Footnote 18:
I persuade myself that Captain Whitefeather here meant nothing
personal.—[JOHN JACKDAW, Ed.]
The swindler must dress well—very well; nay, he must be rather
over-dressed than under-dressed. If his means be scanty, he must on the
outset, if I may use the phrase of a celebrated bill discounter, late of
the New Cut—he must “spend his money superficially”; that is, as the
before-named fiscal authority condescended to explain, he must expend a
little in such a way that the outlay may appear very considerable. He
must, however, continually bear this in mind, that in this our beloved
country—in England—the empress of nations—the queen of reason—the genius
of toleration—and the benefactress of the oppressed—nearly everything
depends upon a man’s coat. Great and rich is he indeed who can afford to
confront the midday sun in threadbare cloth. It matters not what may be
your genius—what your worth; you must make the success of that genius
apparent—you must publish the reward of that worth; you must assure
men’s eyes that you are a fine gentleman, or you will, with all your
glorious aspiration, be passed, confounded with the mob. The triumphs of
mind are to the trading million too subtle, too abstract, to be easily
grasped; but the quality of a man’s coat—the gorgeousness of his
vest—the chain of finest carat—the ring of brightest sparkle—all of
these are so many indisputable evidences of worldly success, and are,
therefore, to be continually carried about by a man as universal
vouchers for his character. John Bull has certainly the largest eyes of
any of the nations. Hence, if it be imperative upon men with even a
known calling to exhibit an outward sign of the prosperity of that
craft, how much more is it incumbent on us—the minions of Mercury, with
nothing but the vivacity of our wits “to feed and clothe” us—to put a
splendid outside upon swindling, and since the world ducks to
appearance, to assure ourselves of its very, very lowest stooping! I
have never yet known an instance of a successful swindler in a shabby
coat. Who, indeed, would trust a man with a hole in his hat? Read the
Police Reports—those “short and simple annals”—how, nineteen times out
of twenty, do they commence? Why, thus—“Algernon Mountedgecomb, a young
man dressed in the highest style of fashion,” etc., etc. Such is always
the strain; for can the reader point out any case with any verbal
similarity to the following:—“Yesterday, John Snooks, a wretchedly
attired fellow, was brought up charged with obtaining under false
pretences a diamond ring, a gold repeater, and a suit of pearls from the
house of——?” Has ever such a case been chronicled? Certainly not: hence,
the tailor is indispensable to the swindler, who is on no account to
spare him. The swindler may, in the weakness of his nature, have some
qualms towards any one except a tailor; but the swindler who deals
mercifully with a tailor had better seek another profession—such
chicken-heartedness is not for our art. The benevolence is so much
goodness lost—wasted—flung to the winds; for you are to bear with you
this recollection: it is an axiom in his trade, that the tailor never
loses. “Them as does pay”—such was the confession of an eminent
coatmaker after his second bottle of Burgundy drank at Button Park, his
country seat—“them as does pay,” said the good man, “pays for them as
doesn’t.” Can there be a finer provision for the protection of trade,
and the satisfaction of the non-paying? Hence, if possible, flay your
tailor. Should he discount—for there are such philanthropists—let him
have a few bills by all means. In his vast profits what are two or three
thousands more or less in a twelvemonth’s balance? _If_, however, he
will not discount the paper of your friends—“accommodate” is a good
word—he cannot refuse your own bill. Great is the satisfaction of a
bill! What serenity comes upon a man’s soul when he hath writ
“accepted”! What a load he feels lifted from his lightened heart! How
airily, how joyously he looks around him, elevated with a sense of duty
done to his neighbour and to himself! Sweet, most sweet, the
satisfaction! Such I am sure was the feeling of my late lamented friend,
Captain Judas Gammon; for that excellent fellow never accepted a bill
that he did not clasp his hands and, raising his eyes with a devout look
of thanksgiving, exclaim, “There now—thank heaven—! that’s paid!”
There is, however, one objection to a bill—it puts another pair of wings
to the back of Time. Hence, get a long day. He was a philosopher and
knew human nature, and more than all, those profound workings of the
human heart set going by the machinery of bills,—he _was_ a sage who, at
the Old Bailey bar,—what men of wit and genius have made that nook all
classic ground!—having received sentence of seven years’ retirement from
the bustling world, thus, with smiling face, addressed the judge:—“I beg
your pardon, my lord, but have you a stamp about you? if so, permit me
to accept a bill at seven years, for then they’ll pass like one.”
Next for equipage. A swindler, like a physician, can scarcely hope to
prosper on foot. He must _ride_ to fame and fortune: hence a cab is of
the first consequence to him. This, however, is too obvious to call for
further disquisition. The effect of a magnificent cab—a grey blood—and a
diminutive fancy tiger—upon the sensibilities of the shopkeeping world
are every day made manifest by the Police Reports. Jonathan Wild,
Richard Turpin, and other worthies laboured on horseback—civilisation
adds to their less bloodthirsty descendants the comforts and the graces
of a cab.
[Illustration:
Other worthies laboured on horseback
]
And now, come we to the moral bearing of the swindler. Destiny has
marked him to play a very various character. He is, I will not attempt
to disguise it, beset by difficulties. There are men, assuredly, born
with a genius for the profession; who, as it would seem, instinctively
adapt themselves to all its peculiarities; men who would have been lost,
sacrificed, utterly unknown in any other calling. I do not address
myself to them—this luminous work is not written for their instruction;
but to the thousands of the rising generation, induced, tempted, by the
spirit of the times—a spirit of the most tyrannic gentility—to live
without means; to eat the fat of the land without once greasing their
delicate fingers in search of it. Let these, however, not conclude that
our path lies over flowers: by no means; there are very many rubs to be
endured on the way—rubs calling for at once the greatest self-possession
and the most admired meekness. Indeed, I should not discharge a great
public duty did I not state it as my conviction that very far less
powers of mind, and ingenuity of a much lower scale, are found
sufficient to make a fortune in any of the low mechanic arts of life
than are required by even the humblest swindler. However, the ardour of
youth is not to be withstood; hence our best choice is to instruct and
fortify it.
And now, neophyte swindler, let me put a few questions to you. And ere
you answer, submit to a most rigorous self-examination—search every hole
and corner of your heart; and then hold up your head and reply
unblushingly.
Can you bear what is called public contempt? Are you clothed with a
moral armour, more impenetrable than the scales of the dragon—from which
the glances of reproach, the scoffs, the sneers, the hard abuse of
vulgar minds—the mere pity of those prigs who call themselves
philanthropists—shall fall aside unfelt and unremembered?
Can you school yourself to look in all human faces—for this trial _will_
come—and find them blank?
Have you sufficient fortitude to witness unrepiningly the good fortune
of some early companion—a dullard, yet plodding, and what the world
calls honest—surrounded with all the luxuries of life, the fruits of
lowly huckstering, when, possibly, you yourself are yearning for a
tester?
Can you bear with the nerves of a martyr the visitation of a
horse-whip—for I will not shirk any of the probabilities that wait upon
the profession—or the vindictive and un-Christianlike application of a
pointed boot to the _os sacrum_?[19]
Footnote 19:
“It is very strange,” remarks Captain Whitefeather in one of his
unpublished essays, “On Personal Satisfaction,” “how very few men know
what is due to themselves and to the second party, in inflicting what
they call personal chastisement. I have,” continues the Captain, with
that delightful ingenuousness which made him the soul of his circle,
“I have been kicked, horsewhipped, cudgelled, tossed in a blanket,
pumped upon and flung into a horse-pond, yet I never, but in one
instance, met with a man who thrashed me _like a gentleman_?”—[JOHN
JACKDAW, Ed.]
Can you, at proper time and season, bear your nose pulled? I am aware
that this is perhaps the most difficult, the most trying ordeal for the
weakness of human nature to withstand; and therefore, I repeat the
question—Can you bear your nose pulled?
Can you, with no qualms at your throat, behold in rags or in a gaol the
simple gull who has trusted you, or who—more exquisitely simple
still—has become your surety?
Can you, when old age approaches, and your place in the world is filled
up by more active, more youthful professors—can you, with your hand upon
your heart, retire like a philosopher to a corner, and with not an eye
to look comfort to you, not a lip to breathe hope to you, not a hand to
grasp your hand—can you breathe your last breath with the conviction
that you have done no injury to the dead, will leave no wounds in the
living—and that having passed a life in heroic defiance of human
prejudices, you meet death with the magnanimous indifference of a
roasted Indian?
Consider, my dear pupil, whether you are so happily organised that you
can support these trials—too often attendant on our chivalrous
profession—and answer.
The pupil laughs at the impossibility of such evils, and, chuckling at
the fun, says—I can.
And Swindling takes him to her arms and makes him all her own!