"Dashall.—Then you are not here because your favourite, young Tangent, is arrived?—Eh?
"Lady Sorrel.—What, Dick, have you found out my attachment there? Well, I confess it; and if my regard be not, I'll take care my revenge shall be, gratified; and 'tis a great consolation that one is nearly as sweet as the other."
And when the above-named cousin of Lady Sorrel has a palaver with the same merchant Dashall, he is instructed in the inner secrets of the commercial world after the following guise:—
"Dashall.—Capital!—an old bugbear—never thought of now. No! paper, discount, does it all.
"Caustic.—Paper!
"Dashall.—Ay. Suppose I owe a tradesman—my tailor, for instance—two thousand pounds—
"Caustic.—A merchant owe his tailor two thousand pounds!—Mercy on me!
"Dashall.—I give him my note for double the sum—he discounts it—I touch half in the ready—note comes due—double the sum again—touch half again—and so on to the tune of fifty thousand pounds. If monopolies answer, make all straight; if not; smash into the Gazette. Brother merchants say, 'D——d fine fellow; lived in style—only traded beyond his capital.' So certificate's signed, ruin a hundred or two reptiles of retailers, and so begin the war again. That's the way to make a splash—devilish neat, isn't it? How you stare! you don't know nothing of life, old boy.
"Caustic.—Vulgar scoundrel!
"Dashall.—We are the boys in the city. Why, there's Sweetwort the brewer—don't you know Sweetwort? Dines an hour later than any duke in the kingdom—imports his own turtle—dresses turbot by a stop watch—has house-lamb fed on cream, and pigs on pine apples—gave a jollification t'other day—stokehole in the brew-house—asked a dozen peers—all glad to come—can't live as we do. Who make the splash in Hyde Park?—who fill the pit at the opera?—who inhabit the squares in the West? Why, the knowing ones from the East to be sure.