A quarter of an hour elapsed before the impatient lord could be obeyed; during this time, his lordship and Holloway rummaged over every thing in the shop. A pretty bauble to hang to his watch caught his lordship’s fancy. His lordship happened to have no money in his pocket. “Holloway,” said he, “my good fellow, you’ve ten guineas in your pocket, I know; do lend me them here.” Holloway, rather proud of his riches, lent his ten guineas to his noble friend with alacrity; but a few minutes afterward recollected that he should want five of them that very night, to pay the poor stage-coachman. His recollection came too late, for after Lord Rawson had paid three or four guineas for his trinket, he let the remainder of the money down with an absent nonchalance, into his pocket. “We’ll settle—I’ll pay you, Holloway, to-morrow morning, you know.”
Holloway, from false shame, replied, “Oh, very well.” And at this instant Mr. Carat entered the shop, bowing and apologizing to his lordship for having been busy.
“I’m always, to be sure, in a very great hurry,” cried Lord Rawson; “I never have a minute that I can call my own. All I wanted though, just now, was to tell you, that I could not settle any thing—you understand—till we come back from Marryborough. I go down there to-morrow.”
The Jew bowed with unlimited acquiescence, assuring his lordship that he should ever wait his perfect convenience. As he spoke, he glanced an inquiring eye upon Holloway.
“Mr. Holloway, the eldest, the only son of Alderman Holloway—rich as a Jew! and he’ll soon leave Westminster,” whispered Lord Rawson to the Jew. “Holloway,” continued he, turning to his friend, “give me leave to introduce Mr. Carat to you. You may,” added his lordship, lowering his voice, “find this Jew a useful friend some time or other, my lad. He’s my man in all money jobs.”
The Jew and the school-boy seemed equally flattered and pleased by this introduction; they were quickly upon familiar terms with one another; and Mr. Carat, who was willing that such an acquaintance should begin in the most advantageous and agreeable manner on his part, took the young gentleman, with an air of mystery and confidence, into a little room behind the shop; there he produced a box full of old-fashioned secondhand trinkets, and, without giving Holloway time to examine them, said that he was going to make a lottery of these things. “If I had any young favourite friends,” continued the wily Jew, “I should give them a little whisper in the ear, and bid them try their fortune; they never will have a finer opportunity.” He then presented a hand-bill, drawn up in a style which even Messrs. Goodluck and Co. need not have disdained to admire. The youth was charmed with the composition. The Jew made him a present of a couple of tickets for himself, and gave him a dozen more, to distribute amongst his companions at Westminster. Holloway readily undertook to distribute the tickets upon condition that he might have a list of the prizes in the lottery. “If they don’t see a list of the prizes,” said he, “not a soul will put in.”
The Jew took a pen immediately, and drew up a captivating list of prizes.
Holloway promised to copy it, because Mr. Carat said his hand must not appear in the business, and it must be conducted with the strictest secrecy; because “the law,” added the Jew, “has a little jealousy of these sort of things—government likes none but licensed lotteries, young gentleman.”
“The law! I don’t care what the law likes,” replied the school-boy; “if I break the law, I hope I’m rich enough to pay the forfeit, or my father will pay for me, which is better still.”
To this doctrine the Jew readily assented, and they parted, mutually satisfied with each other.