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rookeries of commerce up dark passages and down narrow lanes, were now to his aristocraticized feelings, more repugnant than ever, and he had resolved to seek his fortunes not only in an easier manner, but amongst a different and more polished set.

As the reader may easily imagine, a person of Inglis's aspirations and particular cast of mind, could not fail to be influenced by the fashions and foibles of those with whom he associated; and how could such an one escape the corruptions on every side? The gaythe volatile-the reckless-the dissipatedthe gentlemanly-the genteel, were loiterers around the fresh paths he had chosen, and it would verily have required a stouter mind than his to pass unscathed by their machinations. He knew not that over the fashionable world, so called, there were elegant harpies and vulture exquisites ever hovering to pounce upon the unwary as their prey; and he reflected not that if he once got in the toils of such designing men, his ruin was inevitable. He had got into the vortexcards, billiards, and dice had consumed, to

his immense loss of substance and peace, many an evening which ought to have been devoted to his home and his wife. He had now stored up for himself a chastisement, from which there was no probable means of escape. Well might that brow grow sullen, and those gestures indicate despair--he had trusted his frail bark on the stream till it had got within the hurrying influence of the rapids. The precipice was coming nearer― -nearer-what could save him?

CHAPTER XIV.

"Keep a gamester from the dice."

MERRY WIVES OF WINDsor.
Act III., Scene III.

"To his cost,

For want of skill he always lost.
-There was a Club of cheats

Who had contrived a thousand feats;
Could change the stock, or cog a dye,
And thus deceive the sharpest eye.

No wonder how his fortune sunk,

His brothers fleece him when he's drunk."

DEAN SWIFT.

A STORMY, rainy, murky night in London, has the effect of thinning the great thoroughfares in the same ratio as less frequented places; and even the metropolis of the world, under our cloudy, humid, changeable sky, is

at times as dirty and drizzly, and dull and miserable, as to make one grumble and feel peevish and dispirited here as well as in less favoured places. Well, the night now referred to was one of those blowy, rainy, wintry nights, when carriages of all shapes, characters, and contrivances, were in various degrees of progression, threading in wonderfully near proximity past one another, in all directions. Every respectable person crouched him or herself, into the smallest possible dimensions under a dripping umbrella. The non-respectable, who were not supplied with those thoroughly common-sense articles, appeared to envy the possessors of them. The wind ever and anon in angry soughs swept past in melancholy tone-doors clashed, and the heavy drops pattered and pelted against the windows, while splashing, and water, and mud, were on every side prominently recurring realities. The poor jaded horses urged along in the various vehicles, as seen by the dim light emitted by the street lamps and the rows of shops, to a fantastic fancy appeared varnished; and it was manifest that

their gubernators had, in acting on the defensive, donned every article conveniently available, in the shape of huge capes, oil coverings, and wrap-rascals.

As the night wore away, the great arterial thoroughfares, as well as the bye streets and alleys, at an unusually early hour, looked dull and forsaken, and, by midnight, the busy multitudes had apparently with one consent sought their dormitories. St. Martin's church had just chimed twelve, when a solitary hackney coach rumbled past towards Piccadilly, and ever and anon the hearty and unrestrained laugh of its inmates could be heard, as the sound of the wheels died away in the distance. Onwards it progressed, the laugh at intervals being audible, till it suddenly drew up before one of those gorgeous piles in the neighbourhood of St. James's.

"Oh! give the poor devil a crown-don't be scurvy-he deserves it, I'm sure. From Drury Lane to this is worse, by Jove, than three miles' drive in the day time, or when it is fair."

"Here Jarvy, old fellow, as this gentle

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