“I suppose you will consider me exceedingly foolish,” said Mr. Perkbody, turning his head to look out of the window, as if ashamed to make the confession, “when I tell you that I let him have the money. The rascal,” he continued, “shook me by the hand as if we had been intimate friends for years, and, as he left, observed, ‘I hope, my dear sir, this will not be our last transaction. I feel confidence in you, as a gentleman. Good-bye!’
“Do you know,” continued Mr. Perkbody, “I was so satisfied that I had good security for my money that I was tempted to answer other advertisements, and, curiously enough, precisely the same security was offered by all the advertisers. One fellow pestered me for an hour and offered 5l. for the loan of 10l. for a week, and another, with tears in his eyes, would be content (if I did not let him have the cash), if I would lend my name to a bill for the same amount with the prospect of an equally liberal bonus. He would be sure to meet the bill when it became due. These offers, however, I refused, waiting the result of my first speculation, which you will anticipate,” said Mr. Perkbody, “is the loss of my 20l.”
“Mr. Peterson did not meet the bill when it came to maturity?”
“No. Mr. Peterson did not meet the bill, sir. I called several times at his residence (which was at Battersea), but he was always out, and the old woman, his housekeeper, told me that he was so much engaged on business, that took him out of town, that it was difficult to promise when he would be at home. So there was no help for it but to test the value of my ample security.”
“And in testing it you found it wanting?”
“Experientia docet! Will you believe it, sir? Experience has taught me that pawnbrokers advance more than the market value of the goods in pledge.”
“Impossible!” I said.
“I’ll tell you how I tested it, sir,” said Mr. Perkbody. “I took several of the best goods out of pawn, put them up by auction at the very rooms that Mr. Peterson frequented, and would you believe it, I lost fifteen pounds by it! Now, sir, I contend that Mr. Peterson’s occupation must be a very lucrative one, for he appears to have bought goods at the Auction Rooms, gone round the corner and pawned them for more than he gave for them, and then made an exceedingly good market of his reversionary interest. So much for the facts, sir, and I don’t pretend to know how to unravel the secrets of trade connected with them; but I can unravel the secret why Mr. Peterson’s landlord, at Battersea, gave him so good a character. I called on that gentleman, yesterday, and found from him that Peterson had removed to your neighbourhood. ‘I had a letter from an agent asking the character of Peterson,’ he said, ‘and as I was only too glad to get rid of him, I laid it on pretty thick—puffed him as much as I could, and, fortunately for me, Mr. Peterson shifted his quarters.’ Now, sir,” said Mr. Perkbody, “I shall continue my investigations in search of Mr. Peterson, and leave you to get the key of your house how you can, which is, of course, your business and not mine.”
Mr. Perkbody called on me a few days afterwards.
“I say, sir, don’t you think,” he exclaimed, “there is a consolation in a community of suffering? I am not the only fool that Mr. Theodore Peterson has swindled! He’s in the Insolvent Court, and on looking over his schedule I find that I am only one among a great many whom he has patronised. Depend upon it, sir, the promise of a good fat bonus is a temptation to many people who would not like to confess the weakness.”
The last time I saw Mr. Perkbody was in the street. He came across the road to speak to me.
“I kept my eye upon Mr. Peterson’s professional brethren, whose advertisements I answered,” he said, “and they all, like that plausible gentleman, were compelled to take refuge in Portugal Street. The names of my fellow-sufferers—both male and female—would make a list as long as my arm. He must have been a clever fellow that first suggested the fat bonus. Human nature is weak, sir,—very weak, depend upon it!”
I quite agree in Mr. Perkbody’s concluding observation.
OUR CHASE.
The heath, the heath, the purple heath,
The golden gorse, and trembling ferns,
One field of glory make the ground,
And glow for miles and miles around,
Streaked here and there by silvery burns.
The sun plays on them with delight,
And sheds his beams their flowers among;
And all aglow the spirits rise,
As soars the lark into the skies,
And trills his soul in song.
There every tint that nature knows
In bright commingling beauty blends,
And hill, and dale, far-stretching plain,
Ravine, and gorge, reflect again
The splendour each the other lends.
And kissed by light enamoured winds
They rise and fall a mimic sea,
By graceful undulations made,
With such a change of light and shade,
And wavelet beauty, wild and free.
And all the Chase is full of life;
Life on each shrub, and on each tree;
At every step some creature stirs;
The wildcock “clucks,” the partridge “whirrs,”
And heavy-winged the pheasants flee.
There sweeps along the timid fawn;
The hare and rabbit bound away;
And nameless insects buzz about
With strange gyrations in and out,
Like wild fantastic things at play.
O grand and glorious is the sight!
O freedom-breathing is the race!
Through gorse, and heath, and shrub, and fern,
O’er hill, and dale, and bog, and burn,
Across the changes of the Chase!
O health is there to cheer the heart,
And beauty there to glad the eye;
And mind and body, soul and brain,
Receive in full the threefold gain
Of joy, and strength, and liberty!
