“London, April 1st, 18—
“My Dear Hickman,
“I wrote to you the day before yesterday, and, as the letter was one of a very pressing nature, I hope its influence won't be lost upon you. To you who are so well acquainted with the cursed pickle in which I am placed, it is unnecessary to say that I shall be fairly done up, unless you can squeeze something for me out of those rascally tenants of mine. Fairly done up is not the proper term either; for between you and me, I strongly suspect a young fellow called Swingler, an ironmonger's son, of giving me a twist too much, on more than one occasion. He was introduced, that is, proposed as a member of our club, by Sir Robert Ratsbane, whose grandfather was a druggist, and seconded by Lord Loadstone, the celebrated lady-killer, as a regular pigeon, who dropped, by the death of old 'burn the wind,' into half a million at least. The fellow did appear to be a very capital speculation, but the whole thing, however, was a trick, as I strongly suspect; for after losing to a tolerably smart tune, our gentleman began to illustrate the doctrine of reaction, and has, under the character of a pigeon, already fleeced half a score of us. Last week I suffered to the tune of eight hundred—Sir Heavyhead to that of twelve—Bill Swag five—and the Hon. Tom Trickman himself, who scarcely ever loses, gave bills for six fifties. I can't stand this, Hickman, that is, I cannot afford to stand it. What is fifteen thousand a year to a man like me, who must support his rank, or be driven to the purgatorial alternative of being imprisoned on his own estate? Hickman, you have no bowels for me, although you can have for the hard-fisted boors on my property, who wont pay up as they ought, and all through your indolence and neglect. You must send me money, get it where you will; beg, borrow, rob, drive, cant, sell out—for money I must have. Two thousand within a fortnight, and no disappointment, or I'm dished. You know not the demands upon me, and therefore you, naturally enough, think very easily—much too easily—of my confounded difficulties. If you had an opera girl to keep, as I have—and a devilish expensive appendage the affectionate jade is—perhaps you might feel a little more Christian sympathy for me than you do. If you had the expense of my yacht—my large stud at Melton Mowbry and Doncaster, and the yearly deficits in my betting book, besides the never ending train of jockies, grooms, feeders, trainers, et hoc genus omne—to meet, it is probable, old boy, you would not feel so boundless an interest, as you say you do, in the peace and welfare of another man's tenantry, and all this at that other man's expense. You're confoundedly unreasonable, Hickman. Why feel, or pretend to feel, more for these fellows, their barelegged wives, and ragged brats, than you do for a nobleman of rank, to whom you are deeply indebted. I mean you no offence, Hickman; you are in other respects an honest fellow enough, and if possessed of only a little less heart, as the times go, and more skill in raising money from these people, you would be invaluable to such a distressed devil as I am. As it is, I regret to say, that you are more a friend to my tenantry than to myself, which is a poor qualification for an agent. In fact, we, the Irish aristocracy living here, or absentees as you call us, instead of being assailed by abuse, want of patriotism, neglect of duties, and all that kind of stuff, have an especial claim upon the compassion of their countrymen. If you knew what we, with limited means and encumbered properties, must suffer in attempting to compete with the aristocracy of this country, who are enormously rich, you would say that we deserve immortal credit for holding out and keeping up appearances as we do—not that I think we always come off scott-free from their ridicule, especially when they see the shifts to which we are put, in order to stretch onward at their own pace. However, we must drink when we are thirsty, as well as they, and if the water happen to be low in the cistern, which, indeed, is mostly the case with us, we must, as the rook in the fable did with the pebbles, throw in rack-renting, drivings, executions, mortgages, loans, &c, in order to bring it within our reach—for there is ingenuity in everything, as the proverb says, except in roasting of eggs.
“Come, then, Hickman, set to work at once. My yacht has been damaged by a foolish wager I made to run her through a creek of reefs at low water, so that the mere repairs will cost me a cool two hundred at least. Besides this, I have pledged myself to buy my charming little Signora a pair of Blenheim spaniels that she has fallen in love with, for which I shall have to fork out a hundred and fifty down. I say, then, again, my dear Hickman, money, money; money by any means, but by all means money; rem, sed quocunque modo rem.
“By the way is there not a man there, a kind of under-fellow in something—agent, I believe—some time appointed, named M'Snitchy, or M'Smatchey, M'Clutchy, or some such euphonious appellative? Somebody, old Deaker I think, once mentioned him to me in strong terms, and said he might become capable of being useful; and you know, Hickman, as well as I do, that every property circumstanced as mine is, requires a useful fellow of that particular description. For instance, I dare say, there are certain proceedings connected with your duty to which you have no great inclination, and, under these circumstances, would it not be prudent at least to resort to the agency of somebody like this M'Clutchy; a fellow not overburthened with too strong a perception of the necessary pressure. But the truth is, if I proceed in this manner, your humanity, as the cant goes, will take the alarm; you will say that my residence abroad has not improved my principles; and that I am rather strongly tainted with club morality, and the ethics of the gaming, house. So would you, perhaps, if you breathed my atmosphere, and were exposed to my temptations. But now I am preaching, and not to the right purpose either; so as I said before, I say again—money, money, money.
“I am, my dear Hickman, “Thy friend in distress, “Cumber.”
Henry Hickman, Esq., to the Right Honorable Lord Viscount Cumber:—
Primrose Hill, April 18—
“My Lord:
“I have had the honor of receiving both your communications, and have read them, especially that of the first instant, with great pain. I need not tell you, that I have been your father's friend—that I have been, and still am your friend, and as such, from my age and anxiety for your lordship's welfare and reputation, I must take the liberty of one who has both sincerely at heart, to write to you in terms which a mere agent could not with propriety use. As this letter, therefore, is written for your own eye only, you will be good enough to remember that in everything severe and home-spoken in it, the friend, and not the agent speaks—at the same time, I must admit, that it is from the knowledge gained as an agent that I remonstrate as a friend.