I smiled.
"I mean it though," said he. "I see a man now that comes here on purpose to study—as clever a man at his books as ever I saw, and as fine a fellow to talk as you know—there, just look across the road—under that pillar—near the archway. There, just where them two men has left a open space. Tell me, who do you see there, sir?"
"Why, Mr CLAYTON!" I replied, astonished at the sight.
"Yes, and if you'll come here every day of your life, there you'll find him. I've watched him often, since Smith first put me up to his tricks, and I have never missed him. There he is making money, and wearing his soul out because he can't make half enough to satisfy his greedy maw. His covetousness is awful. There's nothing that he doesn't speckylate in; there's hardly a man of business in his congregation that he doesn't, either by himself or others, lend money out at usury. I mean such on 'em as he knows are right; for catch him, if he knows it, trusting the rotten brothers. Smith says he has got something to do with every one of the stocks. I don't know whether that is any thing to eat and drink or not, but I think they call this here bear-garden the Stock Exchange, and here the out-and-outer spends more than half his days." Whilst Thompson spoke, one of the two men, whom I have mentioned as being for many hours together closeted with the minister in his private study, and whom I set down as missionaries—came up in great haste to Mr Clayton, and communicated to him news, apparently, of importance. The latter immediately produced a pocket-book, in which he wrote a few words with a pencil, and the individual departed. The information, whatever it may have been, had deeply affected the man to whom it had been brought. He did not stand still, as before, but walked nervously about, looked pale, care-worn, and miserably anxious. He referred to his book a dozen times—restored it frequently to his pocket, and had it out again immediately for surer satisfaction, or for further calculations. In about ten minutes, "the missionary" returned. This time he was the bearer of a better tale. The minister smiled—his brow expanded, and his eye had the vivacity and fire that belonged to it in the pulpit. Another memorandum was written in the pocket book, and the two gentlemen walked quickly, and side by side, along the covered avenue. I had seen sufficient.
"Let us go," I said to Thompson.
"Why, you don't mean to say you have had enough!" returned he; "oh, wait a bit, and see the other boy. They make a precious trio."
I declined to witness the melancholy spectacle any longer. I was oppressed, grieved, sickened, at the sad presentation of humanity. What an overthrow was this! What a problem in the moral structure of man! I could not understand it. I had no power to enquire into it. Against all preconceived notions of possibility, there existed a palpable fact. What could reason do in a case in which the senses almost refused to acknowledge the evidence which they themselves had produced?
Thompson was delighted at the result of our "voyage of discovery," and continued to be facetious at the expense of the unhappy minister. I implored him to desist.
"Say no more, Thompson. This is no subject for laughter. I have suffered much since your brother carried me to Birmingham. This is the hardest blow yet. I believe now that all is a dream. This is not Mr Clayton. It is a cheat of Satan. We are deluded and made fools in the hands of the Wicked One."
"You'll excuse me, sir," said Thompson, "but if I didn't know you better, I should say, to hear you talk in that uncommonly queer way, that you were as big a wessel as any of 'em. Don't flatter yourself you are dreaming, when you never were wider awake in all your life."