"Ebenezer Wild," said I, "if thee is my friend, lend me that twenty thousand dollars. It will save me from ruin."
"Really, Mr. Longstraw," said Ebenezer Wild, (who was no Quaker, though his father had been before him), "I am surprised a reasonable man should make such a request. I have told you twenty times you would ruin yourself by your cursed philanthropy—can't consent to be ruined with you. Pity you, Mr. Longstraw—awfully swindled; wonder you could trust such a knave as Abel Snipe—sorry to hear matters look so black for Jonathan—thought better of him—quite unnatural to be defrauded by one's own flesh and blood."
What Ebenezer meant by his concluding remarks I did not, at that moment, understand. But I comprehended them well enough when I had run to five or six other friends, rich men like him, all of whom treated my request to borrow with as little respect, while all wound up their commonplace condolings by assuring me, first, that Abel Snipe had swindled me; and, secondly, that there was much reason to believe my nephew Jonathan had done the same thing.
Reader, this is a very wicked world we live in. My philanthropy did not make me, as philanthropy often does, selfish with my friends. I felt as much pleasure in obliging one who happened to be in a difficulty, with a loan of any sum within my reach, as in relieving actual distress. Of twelve different persons whom I now sought in my dilemma, I had in this manner, at different times, obliged no less than eleven; of not one of whom could I now borrow a dollar. Every man pitied my misfortune, every one inveighed with becoming severity against the villany of those by whom I was ruined, but every one was astonished that a reasonable man like me should expect another reasonable man to part with his money. In short, it was evident that my friends loved borrowing better than lending; and I left the door of the twelfth with the agreeable conviction on my spirit, that human nature was of the nature of a stone, I being the only man of the thousand million in the world that had actually a heart in my bosom.
This consideration was racking enough; but it made a small part of my distress. Every man had charged my friend, honest Abel Snipe, with having swindled me, as Ebenezer Wild had charged before; and every one, in like manner, swore that my nephew Jonathan had borne a part in the nefarious transaction. This seemed to me incredible enough; but when I remembered Jonathan's late behaviour, his unexpected defection, his hard, unfeeling, nay, his treacherous selfishness, I felt prepared to believe almost any wickedness that might be said of him.
I ran to Abel's office, resolved to sift the affair to the bottom. The work was already done to my hands; I found the office full of people, some of whom were officers of the police, who had seized upon books and papers, and (awful to be said!) the body of Abel Snipe; and all raging with vociferation and confusion, except the latter worthy, who looked as if astounded out of his senses. "It's a clear case of swindling," cried a dozen voices as I entered, "a design to defraud—fraud from beginning to end; flagrant, scandalous, scoundrelly swindling—, nay, worse than swindling—it is a conspiracy! Jonathan has confessed it—been going on this three months;—Jonathan has confessed it!"
Jonathan had confessed it! confessed what? Why, confessed, as every one gave me to understand, and confessed in the hands of justice (for it seems he had been arrested), that he and Abel Snipe had entered into a conspiracy to defraud me of my property, which had been carried on from the moment that the latter was established in business, and was now completed by a long-designed bankruptcy.
Let the reader imagine my feelings at this disclosure of ingratitude and villany so monstrous.
My best friend—a man whom I had wrested from the extremity of poverty and disgrace, and my only relative—a youth whom I had adopted and reared as my son, who was my heir at law, and the living partner, as I may say, in all my possessions—had leagued together feloniously to deprive me of what I never denied them the privilege to share,—to rob, to fleece, to reduce me to beggary.
Words cannot paint my grief. I crept away from the scene of confusion, ashamed of my manhood, ashamed even of my philanthropy. I reached the door of my house; it was just dusk; a poor man standing at the door implored my charity for a miserable creature, as he called himself. "Go to the devil!" said I.