"My brief career terminated in ruin and disgrace: wealth which is not acquired by industry, is seldom retained by prudence; and to those unacquainted with the real value of money, a large sum always appears inexhaustible. So it was with me. I spent, without calculating the cost, and soon lost all. The world now wore a very different aspect. I was deserted by all my gay associates; my most intimate companions passed me in the streets without recognition. I knew that this would be the result of my altered fortunes, yet the reality cut me to the heart.
"These are mortifying lessons, which experience, wisdom's best counsellor, daily teaches us; and a man must either be very self-conceited, or very insensible, who cannot profit by her valuable instructions. The hour which brought to me the humiliating conviction, that I was a person of no consequence; that the world could go on very well without me; that my merry companions would not be one jot less facetious, though I was absent from their jovial parties, was after all not the most miserable of my life.
"I woke as from a dream. The scales had fallen from my eyes. I knew myself—and became a wiser and better man. I called all my creditors together, discharged my debts, and found myself free of the world in the most liberal sense.
"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed. "How could you bear such a dreadful reverse with such fortitude—such magnanimity?"
"You give me greater credit than I deserve, Geoffrey: my imprudent conduct merited a severe punishment, and I had sense enough to discern that it was just. After the first shock was over, I felt happier in my poverty than I had ever done during my unmerited prosperity. I had abused the gifts of fortune while they were mine, and I determined to acquire an independence by my own exertions. A friend, whom I had scarcely regarded as such, during my reckless career of folly, came unexpectedly to my assistance, and offered to purchase for me a commission in the army, but I had private reasons for wishing to obtain a situation in this office. Writing a good hand, and having been originally educated for the profession, together with the recommendation of Mr. Bassett who was related to my friend, procured me the place I now hold."
"And your reasons for coming here?" I cried, burning with curiosity.
"Pardon me, Geoffrey. That is my secret."
He spoke with the calmness of a philosopher, but I saw his emotion, as his eyes turned mechanically to the parchment he was copying, and affected an air of cheerful resignation.
The candid exposure of his past faults and follies raised, rather than sunk him in my estimation; but I was sadly disappointed at the general terms in which they were revealed. I wanted to know every event of his private life, and this abridgment was very tantalizing.
While I was pondering these things in my heart, the pen he had grasped so tightly was flung to some distance, and he raised his fine eyes to my face.