Whether Shufflebotham had examined the first half of his note, I cannot say; but I had caused the print to be divided in such a way (to guard against accidents) that he would see the words “Bank of E,” and no more of the title of the establishment from which it purported to have been issued, and he was too illiterate or inexperienced in bank-notes to discover that the paper itself was not of the kind made for the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.
The patriotic barber was thunderstruck. He was speechless for a moment or two with disappointment and mortification. When he had partly recovered himself, he stamped once, and swore in about two sentences that we were plunderers, and that he would have us prosecuted for circulating bad money. Our attorney thought this a good joke. It was one of a sort that he could appreciate; so drawing upon his imagination for his law, by way of retort Mr. Yellowly informed Mr. Shufflebotham that he had been treated as he deserved, that he had “better keep a quiet tongue in his head,” that, at all events, he must behave himself in that room, or he would be kicked out by one of our roughs in close attendance, and that he might also get transported for bribery.
The barber gnashed his teeth, and went away not rejoicing. I believe he has voted twice for the Tories since that day, without fee or reward—unless vengeance upon his Liberal betrayers was his motive and his compensation.
A ROMANCE OF SOCIAL LIFE.
ABOUT four years ago there lived, in the neighbourhood of Kentish Town, a wedded couple of the name of Green.
Mr. Green was a merchant, carrying on business in the City in co-partnership with a German gentleman; and in the enjoyment of a good income from “a house” at the head of which it was his pride to stand.
The couple had not been long united in the holy bonds of matrimony. When he married, he considered himself fortunate in obtaining for his partner a pretty little brunette of a woman, somewhere about thirty years of age, and of no mean accomplishments. With this lady for his wife, Mr. Green lived for a period of three years in an easy and comfortable, not to say happy or blissful, state. The couple had no children; but with that exception they had all the ingredients which should contribute to the material and social happiness of human beings.
The disparity in age between Mr. and Mrs. Green was perhaps a circumstance that contributed to limit the sources of affection; but, as every body said, they jogged along very cheerily, and the serenity and calmness of their lives made them the objects of a good deal of envy.
Mrs. Green had been the daughter of a confidential clerk to her husband. She had lost her mother early in life, and her father died when she was but eighteen years of age. His salary in the house of Messrs. Green and Schnackwether had been, for a long period prior to his death, very liberal, and he might, with reasonable economy, have saved a few hundreds of pounds out of it if he had been so inclined. He ought, certainly, to have left some provision behind him in the shape of a life assurance, but he did not. He lived entirely up to, or somewhat beyond, his means. Miss Thomson, his daughter, was consequently obliged to earn her subsequent livelihood, which she did as a daily governess. Her experience in this vocation was not, I dare say, much unlike the experience of other young women in that position, of which the reader will have a tolerably accurate notion, and therefore I will abstain from describing it. It may be enough to say, that it was a cheerless, hard, and mortifying experience. She confessed that rebuffs and petty insults shut up, and the wearing influence of consecutive labour dried up, the wells of female emotion, gave a certain piquancy or sharpness to her thoughts, rendered her, indeed, distrustful of the world, and cynical, if not calculating and selfish.
During her girlhood, while her father lived, and after his death, but before her marriage, Mrs. Green had received many kindnesses from her late parent’s master. He was attached to his clerk Thomson by that sort of attachment, and to that extent, which long and faithful service begets in the mind of an employer.