however, taken with his never neglecting, caused him to be thought a long-headed man, making safe speculations, who would be wealthy, if he were not so already. He was in reality, one of a very large number in the mercantile world, whose circumstances no one knows, but who get credit for being either rich or honest, sometimes for being both. This credit is most frequently obtained by a rude exterior, and by inexpen sive habits, for it is the wealthy who can afford to adopt these.

But all this, though not assumed for deception, is deceptive. Such men are merely gamblers. They balance the losses of one bold speculation against the gains of another; they keep afloat caring little by what means -in the end, they may make a fortune, or they may be rogues.

With this partner, Hardy's knowledge of business extended amazingly in a short time. He was startled sometimes at first, by the

transactions in which he found himself engaged, thinking should their affairs come to a crash, what would be the result to others. But his partner was not a man to discuss the pundonor, as the Spaniard terms it; nice cases of honour and conscience he cared nothing about. Benjamin was given to understand that they were as honest as any other men, and that he, as the younger and subaltern agent, had not a large share in the responsibility of what was undertaken. With this assurance he went on working indefatigably in his vocation. But I would gladly leave that vocation, for another view of my hero's life.

Yet, let it not be supposed that I look slightingly on his perseverance and his industry. The exercise of those qualities I hold to be essential to the fulfilment of man's duties; I believe that it is from so many shirking them, that we find so much knavery business, though he did talk about politics,

and beggary around us.

Still, though

England may exult in a state of things which leaves to the mass of her people only those two qualities, perseverance and industry in lieu of all the virtues, I exult not in it-nor would I exult in a hero possessing them alone in the achievement of greatness; for then he could only go through the labour of making money, for the purpose of having money; a very inadequate return for his toil..

No-neither Benjamin nor I propose that to ourselves! And Benjamin once said something of the kind to his eager partner. All that he could gather in reply was, that he was thought to be "young" by that middle-aged gentleman. Then, with a notion of his own that it was "paradoxical that there should be so much avarice and so much liberality united" in the middle-aged gentleman, (he never supposed that there was anything paradoxical in his own state of

mind, nor do I, that there is in mine), he determined to keep all his aspiring thoughts to himself.

CHAPTER XV.

"Son âme est comme l' orage,
Qui gronde dans le nuage
Et qui ne peut éclater,
Comme la vague captive,

Qui bat et blanchit sa rive

Et ne peut la surmonter.

Elle s' use et se consume,

Comme un aiglon dont la plume

N'aurait pas encore grandi,
Dont l'œil aspire à sa sphère,
El qui rampe sur la terre,

Comme un reptile engourdi."

LAMARTINE.

HAVING said so much of mere trading concerns, it may here be added that Benjamin Hardy mingled in Liverpool society with views beyond it, and above it, but they were