Faithless Brown! He robbed me of my belief in human nature, in addition to my hoarded “greenbacks.”
The office, I found, had been taken by the keen philanthropist for a week, a few dollars of the rent being advanced by him as security on account. On asking at the bank, which had in the first instance satisfied me of his integrity, the cashier told me that Brown of Philadelphia had drawn out all of his available balance the very afternoon on which I had made my inquiries respecting him; and where he was gone, no one knew!
“Skedaddled,” evidently. As for shoddy celebrity, “up town,” to whom Brown of Philadelphia had also referred me, said that my friend had swindled him a short period before. Good joke, his being given as a reference!
I put the affair in the hands of the police; but they gave me about as much comfort as our guardians in blue would have done.
They said he had gone south. I went to Baltimore after him; but I could not meet him, although I was full of determination and had taken a revolver with me in case Brown might have his “shooting irons” handy!—The blunderbuss that had belonged to the deceased Earl Planetree, and which Lady Dasher had given me as a useful parting present, I had left behind in England, thinking that such a valuable object of antiquity should not be recklessly risked.
The police then telegraphed for me to come north—while I was enjoying the canvas-backed ducks of “Maryland, my Maryland,” and nursing my vengeance. I came “up north;” but it was of no use. I never saw Brown of Philadelphia again, or recovered my lost capital.
It had gone where the good, or bad, niggers go; and I only hope “Brown” has gone there too!
This misfortune filled up the measure of my troubles, though they were numerous enough already.
To get employment of a regular character, which became more necessary to me now than ever—was as impossible as it had been all along!
Nobody seemed to want anybody like me, in spite of my being not unskilled in foreign languages, and up to clerk’s work—having not yet forgotten the book-keeping which my crammer had crammed into me for the benefit of the “Polite Letter Writer Commissioners.”