"You, sir—you!" cried both the gentlemen at once. "Give us your hand, sir, we are proud of having the honour of seeing you."
"Yes, sir," returned one of them; "we left the exhibition to-day just before it closed, and had the pleasure of seeing the porter attach the ticket to it."
"Glorious!—joy! joy!" cried Peter, running in ecstasy to the bell, and ringing it violently; and, as the waiter entered, he added, "A bottle of claret! claret, boy!—claret!" And he sat down to treat the gentlemen who had announced to him the glad tidings. They drank long and deep, till Peter's head came in contact with the table, and sleep sealed up his eyelids. When aroused by the landlord, who presented his bill, his companions were gone; and, stupid as Peter was, he recollected for the first time that his pocket did not contain funds to discharge the reckoning; and he left his watch with the tavern-keeper, promising to redeem it the next day, when he received the price of his picture. I need not tell you what a miserable day that next day was to him, when, with his head aching with the fumes of the wine, he found that he had been duped—that his picture was not sold. The exhibition closed for the season; he had spent his last shilling—and Paul was as poor as Peter: but the former borrowed a guinea, to pay his brother's fare on the outside of the coach to——.
Andrew Donaldson continued to struggle hard; but, struggle as he would, he could not pay the interest of the mortgage. Disappointment, sorrow, humbled vanity, and the laugh of the world, were too much for him; and, shortly after Peter's visit to Edinburgh, he died, repenting that he had ever pursued the phantom Fashion, or sought after the rottenness of wealth.
"And what," inquired I, "became of Mrs Donaldson, and her sons Paul and Peter?"
"Peter, sir," continued the narrator, "rose to eminence in his profession; and, redeeming the mortgage on Lottery Hall, he gave it as a present to his brother Paul, who opened it as an establishment for young gentlemen. His mother resides with him; and, sir, Paul hath spoken unto you—he hath given you the history of Lottery Hall."