CHAPTER VIII.
MERCURY IS THE PATRON DEITY OF MERCANTILE SPECULATORS, AS WELL AS OF CRACK-BRAINED POETS; INDEED, HE IS MUCH MORE FAVOURABLE, MORE A FRIEND AT A PINCH, TO THE FORMER CLASS OF HIS PROTEGES THAN HE IS TO THE LATTER.
"Poolum per hostes mercurius celer,
Denso paventem sustulit aere."
Poole was sitting with his wife after dinner. He had made a good speculation that day; little Johnny would be all the better for it a few years hence, and some other man's little Johnnys all the worse--but each for himself in this world! Poole was therefore basking in the light of his gentle helpmate's approving smile. He had taken all extra glass of a venerable port-wine, which had passed to his cellar from the bins of Uncle Sam. Commercial prosperity without, conjugal felicity within, the walls of Alhambra Villa; surely Adolphus Poole is an enviable man! Does he look so? The ghost of what he was but a few months ago! His cheeks have fallen in; his clothes hang on him like bags; there is a worried, haggard look in his eyes, a nervous twitch in his lips, and every now and then he looks at the handsome Parisian clock on the chimneypiece, and then shifts his posture, snubs his connubial angel, who asks "what ails him?" refills his glass, and stares on the fire, seeing strange shapes in the mobile aspects of the coals.
To-morrow brings back this weekly spectre! To-morrow Jasper Losely, punctual to the stroke of eleven, returns to remind him of that past which, if revealed, will blast the future. And revealed it might be any hour despite the bribe for silence which he must pay with his own hands, under his own roof. Would he trust another with the secret of that payment?--horror! Would he visit Losely at his own lodging, and pay him there?--murder! Would he appoint him somewhere in the streets--run the chance of being seen with such a friend? Respectability confabulating with offal?--disgrace! And Jasper had on the last two or three visits been peculiarly disagreeable. He had talked loud. Poole feared that his wife might have her ear at the keyhole. Jasper had seen the parlour-maid in the passage as he went out, and caught her round the waist. The parlour-maid had complained to Mrs. Poole,
