“The lover’s face began to thaw, and he showed some signs of kindly animation.
“‘At a word, then,’ cried Jericho with affected heartiness, ‘will you take fifteen thousand?’
“‘From you—yes,’ cried Candytuft; and he seized Jericho’s hand.
“The man of money looked at Candytuft with a contemptuous sneer, and with a wrench twisted his hand away. He then dropped into a chair, and a strange, diabolical scowl possessed his countenance. The man of money looked like a devil.
“‘And where—where do you think this money is to come from? Where?’ asked Jericho, and he rose from his chair, and it seemed as though the demon possessing him would compel the wretch to talk—would compel him to make terrible revelations. Each word he uttered was born of agony. But there he stood, forced to give utterances that tortured him. ‘I will tell you,’ roared Jericho, ‘what this money is. Look about you! What do you see?—fine pictures, fine everything. Why, you see me—tortured, torn, worked up, changed. The walls are hung with my flesh—my flesh you walk upon. I am worn piecemeal by a hundred thieves, but I’ll be shared among them no longer.’”
By this time the girls and Sir Arthur Homadod, alarmed by the cries of Jericho, had entered the room.
“‘And you had a fine feast, had you not?’ cried the possessed man of money, writhing with misery and howling his confession. ‘And what did you eat?—my flesh. What did you drink?—my blood!’”
It would be impossible to imagine a more satisfactory realization of this powerful scene than Leech’s rendering of it. The shrinking figure of Candytuft as he retreats before the fury of the moneyed man; the awful passion of the shrivelled Jericho; above all, the vacuous expression of Sir Arthur, all are done to perfection and without exaggeration. Beyond the endeavour to make the meaning of the illustrations in the “Man made of Money” clear to my readers, I have little or nothing to do with the story. I may note, however, that young Basil Pennibacker falls in love with Bessy, the pretty daughter of the ruined merchant Carraway, and that bold bankrupt, who is about to seek a new fortune at the Antipodes, calls upon Jericho to ask his consent to his stepson’s marriage. How the announcement of the engagement was received may be imagined, or if my reader be not satisfied with his idea of what may have taken place, he can read in Mr. Jerrold’s book how Mr. Carraway was met by his old friend. He will also find an illustration of an interview between “The Pauper and the Man of Money,” but as I do not think it quite worthy of Leech, I do not reproduce it. I may as well add that Basil—who turns out to be a very good fellow—does marry Bessy, and the happy pair, with the parent pair of Carraways, depart for Australia in the good ship Halcyon.
Mr. Jericho’s explosion, and his unpleasant conduct generally—especially regarding Monica’s dowry—had altered Mr. Candytuft’s matrimonial intentions for the present: there were delays. “He had suddenly discovered some dormant right to some long-forgotten property, and he meant to secure that, and lay it as an offering at the feet of his bride.” How the foolish Sir Arthur agreed to marry Agatha without a dowry, to the intense delight of Jericho—how splendid preparations for the wedding were made—how the wedding-party, Jericho included, waited at the church for the bridegroom, who never came (he had overslept himself in consequence of an overdose of medicine taken to steady his nerves)—for these details my reader is again referred to Mr. Jerrold, who describes the whole most enjoyably. Leech draws the baronet awakened by his servant, but too late: the canonical hour has passed. A report was spread that Sir Arthur had taken poison to avoid the Jericho connection.