During his absence I had abundant time to study those about me. Indeed, a perfect sameness in their characters as in their pursuits rendered it an easy process; for as with unguarded frankness they spoke of their several difficulties, their stories presented one uniform feature-reckless expenditure and wasteful extravagance, with limited means and encumbered fortunes. They had passed through every phase of borrowing, every mode of raising money, and were now reduced to the last rung of the ladder of expediency, to become the prey of the usurer, who meted out to them a few more months of extravagance at the cost of many a future year of sorrow and repining.
I was beginning to grow impatient as the door gently opened, and I saw my friend, as he emerged from the back drawing-room. Without losing a moment's time I joined him. We descended the stairs together, and walked out into the street.
'Are you fond of pickled herrings, Jack?' said O'Grady, as he took my arm.
'Pickled herrings! Why, what do you mean?'
'Probably,' resumed he, in the same dry tone of voice, 'you prefer ash bark, or asafetida?'
'Why, I can't say.'
'Ah, my boy, you 're difficult to please, then. What do you say to whale oil and Welsh wigs?'
'Confound me if I understand you!'
'Nothing more easy after all, for of each of these commodities I 'm now a possessor to the amount of some two hundred and twenty pounds. You look surprised, but such is the nature of our transactions here; and for my bill of five hundred, payable in six months, I have become a general merchant to the extent I've told you, not to mention paying eighty more for a certain gig and horse, popularly known in this city as the discount dennet. This,' continued he with a sigh, 'is about the tenth time I've been the owner of that vile conveyance; for you must know whenever Fagan advances a good round sum he always insists upon something of this kind forming part of it, and thus, according to the figure of your loan, you may drive from his door in anything, from a wheel-barrow to a stage-coach. As for the discount dennet, it is as well known as the black-cart that conveys the prisoners to Newgate, and the reputation of him who travels in either is pretty much on a par. From the crank of the rusty springs, to the limping amble of the malicious old black beast in the shafts, the whole thing has a look of beggary about it. Every jingle of the ragged harness seems to whisper in your ear, “Fifty per cent.”; and drive which way you will, it is impossible to get free of the notion that you're not trotting along the road to ruin. To have been seen in it once is as though you had figured in the pillory, and the very fact of its being in your possession is a blow of a battering-ram to your credit for ever!'