and a great ship-owner now; they keep their
own carriage, while I am obliged to travel
third class—when I can't get a free-
pass. I married Rebecca. The alderman
was quite agreeable. He said, " Benjamin,
I shan't give my daughter any fortune.
When I married my Rebecca I had but thirty
shillings a week, and she'd saved a hundred
pound. Now, you'll have all Rebecca's
savings; I allow her twenty pounds a year
for clothes and pocket money, and when
I die you'll have something handsome."

I didn't much like this. It wasn't what
my father planned for me; but, if I gave
it up, I knew I could not live in
Mudborough. Old Drabble would have made it
too hot for me. So I married her.

I began to repent the day after, and have
repented ever since. My father's was a careful
house: bread and milk for breakfast, or
porridge; roast or boiled and pudding for dinner;
and glass of grog on Sundays. But there it was
more talk than anything else. Rebecca used
to make me live on herrings and sprats,
and never bought any meat but sticking-
pieces. She used to dine by herself, before
I came home, on some little nicety.

After we were married the Alderman got
into the habit of going to London a good deal
to see about investments, leaving us to take
care of his house. He left nothing in it but
the furniture; so we did not save much by
that. One day news came from his London
broker that he had fallen down dead at the
Railway Hotel. I can't say I was much
fretted by the news. No more was Rebecca,
for he was a tiresome stingy old man. I went
down to 'Change that day pretty proud.
How they did flock round and shake
me by the hand, and condole and
congratulate me, and pay me compliments. There
were a dozen of the first merchants asking
my advice.

I went up to town in a new suit of black,
out of turn, for it was my rule to make a suit
last twelve months. When I found the—would
you believe it?—the old villain was married a
second time, had a wife and a young family
living in a house close to the London station. He
had left all his money—it was not so much
by half as people thought—to the young
brats. Their mother was a turnpike gate-
keeper's daughter, young enough to be his
granddaughter. So we got nothing except
five thousand pounds settled strictly on
Rebecca. To add insult to the injury, he said,
in his will "as my son-in-law is so frugal and
industrious he will not want money so much
as my helpless babes."

I had no peace after this happened at home,
for Rebecca would have it that it was all my
fault.

However, in spite of everything—although
my friends looked very cold on me when I
came back, and Alderman Tibbs, and the
great Mr. Glight, of the firm Glight, Ribs,
and Bibbs, treated me as if I had swindled
them by accepting an invitation to dinner
sent on the strength of the report that Mr.
Drabble had left us an immense fortune,—
I did manage to make money. I had saved
a nice little capital, and made some very
pretty hits in underwriting; for I thoroughly
understood ships. People used to say, "as
safe as Ben Balance;" " Balance knows
which side his bread is buttered;" or "you
can't come Yorkshire over Mr. Balance."
"He can see through you, can Balance."

I do believe I should have made a plum,
perhaps have been mayor, and even knighted;
though, to be sure, having always a delicate
digestion, and never able to drink more than
one pint of port wine, I could scarcely have
been qualified to stand in the shoes of our true
blue five-bottle man, Sir Peter Curley, who
was knighted in especial compliment to the
Oporto interest. Often and often I used to sit
and think what a fool my uncle was, for not
realising when he could have made thirty
thousand pounds by the Real del Monte
shares that I had to sell for thirty pounds,
and that nothing would incline me to take a
share in anything. When the railway
fever broke out, I was worth at least ten
thousand pound.

At first I took no notice of all that was
in the newspapers. I joined the steady
set in the reading-room in laughing at the
young fellows who were so deep and hot
speculating, and flying by express trains up
and down to and from London. But
presently one friend, and then another, dropped
into the stream, and then came to tell me
how much they had made. There was
young Sploshton, not in business above
six months, who realised a little fortune
in six weeks—married the girl he
had been engaged to for three years, and
actually bought a small estate and retired
from business. He lives on it now. There
was young Tandemtit; he had been so wild
his friends had sent him to America. He
returned in his shirt-sleeves, and was obliged
to borrow a crown piece of the station-
master at Bootlem to bring him to his
father's house. He set up as a share-broker—
the second ever known in the town; the
other, old Foggerton, only dealt in
government stock. The first year Tandemtit
opened a good amount with Glight, Ribs and
Bibbs,—drove his mail phaeton, and gave open
champagne lunches to his customers. There
was Alderman Cobalt, who went up to town
to his son's wedding, met an engineer in the
train, and, from his information, made five
thousand pounds in one transaction. It was no
use shutting your ears; these stories were
dinned into your ears every day—even the
women talked of them. I made my two
pounds, or five, and sometimes ten pounds
a day, by my business. But when in every
shop and every counting-house, and on
'Change, at all hours we heard of thousands
and tens of thousands made in a stroke of a pen,