He was an aristocrat by birth, noble on both sides of his house, and unluckily had money. But for that he would have been a labouring man, and free. My Lord Protector committed him with six hundred pounds a year maintenance money to the care of his committee, the Honourable Fynes Beverley.
Now this corporate, yet honourable individual, to whom something was committed, and so Chancery Lane called him in its own sweet French the thing committed, was a gentleman of birth, breeding, and intelligence. He undertook to take care of his simple cousin; and what he did take care of was himself.
THE SUB-LETTING SWINDLE.
I. The Honourable Fynes Beverley, Anglo-French committee, or crown tenant, sub-let soft Francis for L. 300 a year, pocketed L. 300, and washed his hands of Frank.
2. Mr. Heselden, the sub-tenant, sub-let the Softy of high degree for L. 150, pocketed the surplus, and washed his hands of him.
3. The L. 150 man sub-let him to Dr. Wolf at L. 60 a year, pouched the surplus, and washed his hands of him.
And now what on earth was left for poor Dr. Wolf to do? Could he sub-embezzle a Highlander's breeks? Could he subtract more than her skin from off the singed cat? Could he peel the core of a rotten apple? Could he pare a grated cheese rind? Could he flay a skinned flint? Could he fleece a hog after Satan had shaved it as clean as a bantam's egg?
Let no man dare to limit genius; least of all the genius of extortion.
Dr. Wolf screwed comparatively more out of young Frank than did any of the preceding screws. He turned him into a servant of all work and half starved him; money profit, L. 45 out of the L. 60, or three-fourths, whereas the others had only bagged one-half. But by this means he got a good servant without wages, and on half a servant's food, clearing L. 22 and L. 12 in these two items.
Victim of our great national vice and foible, Vicariousness, this scion of a noble house, protected in theory by the Crown, vicariously sub-protected by the Chancellor, sub-vicariously sub-sham protected by his kin, was really flung unprotected into the fleece market, and might be seen—at the end of the long chain of subs. pros, vices, locos, shams, shuffles, swindles, and lies—shaking the carpets, making the beds, carrying the water, sweeping the rooms, and scouring the sordid vessels, of thirty patients in Drayton House, not one of whom was his equal either in birth or wealth; and of four menials, who were all his masters and hard ones. His work was always doing, never done. He was not the least mad nor bad, but merely of feeble intellect all round. Fifty thousand gentlemen's families would have been glad of him at L. 300 a year, and made a son and a brother of him. But he was under the vicarious protection of the Lord Chancellor. Thin, half-starved, threadbare, out at elbows, the universal butt, scoffed at by the very lunatics, and especially ill treated by the attendants whose work he did gratis, he was sworn at, jeered, insulted, cuffed and even kicked, every day of his hard, hard life. And yet he was a gentleman, though a soft one; his hands, his features, his carriage, his address, had all an indefinable stamp of race. How had it outlived such crushing, degrading usage? I don't know; how does a daisy survive the iron roller? Alfred soon found him out, and to everybody's amazement, especially Frank's, remonstrated gently but resolutely and eloquently, and soon convinced the majority, sane and insane, that a creature so meek and useful merited special kindness, not cruelty. One keeper, The Robin, alias Tom Wales, an ex—prize fighter, was a warm convert to this view. Among the maniacs only one held out, and said contemptuously he couldn't see it.