If this drawing suffered in the hands of the wood-engraver, it must have been beyond imagination beautiful, for, as it is, it shows us Leech in his full strength. Nothing, it seems to me, could surpass the figure of Lucy, whose expression of loving fear for the safety of the bold Sponge is shown to us in one of the prettiest faces conceivable. Sponge himself is no less successfully rendered as he smiles reassuringly at his beloved. The race—admirably described by the author—is run, and won by Mr. Sponge. “And now for the hero and heroine of our tale. The Sponges—for our friend married Lucy shortly after the steeplechase—stayed at Nonsuch House till the bailiffs walked in. Sir Harry then bolted to Boulogne, where he afterwards died. Being at length starved out of Nonsuch House,” says the historian, “he—Sponge—arrived at his old quarters, the Bantam, in Bond Street, where he turned his attention very seriously to providing for Lucy and the little Sponge, who had now issued its prospectus. He thought over all the ways and means of making money without capital.... Professional steeplechasing Lucy decried, declaring she would rather return to her flag exercises at Astley’s as soon as she was able than have her dear Sponge risking his neck that way. Our friend at length began to fear fortune-making was not so easy as he thought; indeed he was soon sure of it.” Something had to be done; “accordingly, after due consultation with Lucy, he invested his all in fitting up and decorating the splendid establishment in Jermyn Street, St. James’s, now known as the Sponge Cigar and Betting Rooms, where noblemen, gentlemen, and officers in the Household troops may be accommodated with loans on their personal security to any amount.” We see by Mr. Sponge’s last advertisement that he has £116,000 to lend at 3½ per cent.

CHAPTER VIII.

“THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS,” BY ALBERT SMITH.

“December 20, 1844.

“My dear Sir,

   “Here we are at the 20th of the month, and I have only four pages of Smith’s new story—no incident. Really, it is too much to expect that I can throw myself at a moment’s notice into the seventeenth century, with all its difficulties of costume, etc., etc. What am I to do? There is a great want of system somewhere. I received a note from Mr. Marsh last night, stating for the first time that there would be two illustrations to ‘The Marchioness of Brinvilliers,’ and also urging me to be very early with the plates, it being Christmas and all that! But, as I said before, I have not the matter to illustrate. What am I to do? Added to all this, I must be engaged one day in the early part of next week on the melancholy occasion of the funeral of a poor little sister of mine. Pray, my dear sir, do what you can to expedite matters, and

“Believe me,

“Yours faithfully,

“John Leech.

“—— Morgan, Esq.”

The above is one of the many letters that might be quoted to show the aggravating delays and difficulties under which so much of Leech’s work was produced. I take Mr. Morgan to have been one of the officials of Mr. Richard Bentley’s establishment, whose patience must have been sorely tried again and again by the pranks of that genus irritabile, the writer. Judging from the humorous character of Albert Smith’s “Ledbury” and other works, one is hardly prepared for the horrors that make us shudder over the pages of “The Marchioness of Brinvilliers”—horrors in which the writer seems to revel with a zest as keen as that he takes in the fun and frolic of Ledbury.

The “shilling shocker” of the present day is a mild production indeed, in comparison with the history of the poisoner and adulteress, Brinvilliers, in which “on horror’s head horrors accumulate.” The authors of the modern productions are, for the most part, inventors of the blood-and-murder scenes that adorn their books. Not so Mr. Albert Smith, whose pages describe but too truly the career of the most notorious of the many criminals that flourished in the most profligate period of French history. Louis XIV. set an example in debauchery to his subjects which the highest of them eagerly followed; but the most fearful factor of this terrible time was poison, by which the possessors of estates who “lagged superfluous on the scene” were made to give place to greedy heirs; husbands, inconveniently in the way, were put out of it by their wives, whose affections had been disposed of elsewhere; state officers, whose positions were desired by aspirants unwilling to wait for them, were struck by sudden and mysterious illness, speedily followed by death, for which the faculty of the time could in no way account.

Marie, Marchioness of Brinvilliers, lived with her husband in the Rue des Cordeliers in Paris. The Marquis was a man of easy morals, and the Marchioness was a woman of still easier morals, for she had many lovers; she also amused her leisure hours by the study of the nature and properties of a great variety of deadly poisons; thinking, no doubt, as she was of a jealous disposition, that the time might arrive when her knowledge would be useful in depriving her lover of the temptation which had led him to forget his duty to her. The Marchioness was a very beautiful woman; she had eyes of a tender blue; her complexion was of dazzling whiteness, with cheeks of a delicate carnation; her expression was angelic, and she wore her hair of pale gold in bushy ringlets, in obedience to the fashion of the time. We first become acquainted with the Marchioness under painful circumstances, for she made—and kept—an appointment with one lover without being sufficiently careful to disguise her doings from another. That other was the Chevalier Gaudin de Sainte-Croix, who proceeded to the lodgings of his rival, M. Camille Theria.

“‘The Marchioness of Brinvilliers is here, I believe,’ said Gaudin to the grisette at the door. ‘Will you tell her she is wanted on pressing business?’

“The Marchioness appeared. A stifled scream of fear and surprise, yet sufficiently intense to show her emotion at the sight of Gaudin, broke from her lips as she recognised him. But she immediately recovered her impassibility of features—that wonderful calmness and innocent expression which afterwards was so severely put to the proof without being shaken—and she asked, with apparent unconcern:

“‘Well, monsieur, what do you want with me?’

“‘Marie!’ exclaimed Gaudin, ‘let me ask your business here at this hour’ (it was rather late) ‘unattended, and in the apartment of a scholar of the Hôtel Dieu?’

“‘You are mad, Sainte-Croix,’ said the Marchioness. ‘Am I to be accountable to you for all my actions? M. Theria is not here, and I came to see his wife on my own affairs.’

“‘Liar!’ cried Gaudin.”

The lady had not told the truth, for M. Theria had no wife, and he was so near by that he heard the angry voice of M. Sainte-Croix, who so convinced the Marchioness of her perfidy that “in an instant the accustomed firmness of the Marchioness deserted her, and she fell upon her knees at his feet on the cold, damp floor of the landing.”

In this powerful etching nothing could surpass the beauty of the face and figure of the Marchioness; she exactly realizes our ideal. But the Chevalier, though full of passion, is, to my mind, verging on the theatrical.

Finding that her entreaties to the Chevalier to “go away” have no effect, she threatens suicide.

“There is but one resource left,” she says, as she “springs up from her position of supplication.”

“Where are you going?” asked Sainte-Croix, as she rushed to the top of the flight of stairs.

“Hinder me not!” returned Marie. “To the river!”

But before she could reach the river—to which she would no doubt have given a very wide berth—she fainted, or pretended to faint, in the courtyard at the bottom of the staircase. Here the pair were overtaken by M. Theria.

“A few hot and hurried words passed on either side, and the next instant their swords were drawn and crossed. The fight was short, and ended in Sainte-Croix thrusting his rapier completely through the fleshy part of the sword-arm of the student, whose weapon fell to the ground.

“‘I have it!’ cried Camille. ‘A peace, monsieur! I have it!’ he continued, smiling, as he felt that his wound, though slight, was too serious to have been received in so unworthy a cause.

“As he was speaking, Marie opened her eyes and looked around. But the instant she saw the two rivals, she shuddered convulsively, and again relapsed into insensibility.

“‘She is a clever actress,’ continued Camille, smiling.

“‘We have each been duped,’ answered Gaudin.

“‘She will play me no longer. As far as I am concerned,’ said Theria, ‘you are welcome to all her affections, and I shall reckon you as one of my best friends for your visit this evening.’”

The visit was destined to have an unexpected end, however, for the attention of the Guet Royal, or night-guard, had been called to the clashing of swords.

“Some young men, who had come up with the guard as they were returning from their orgies, pressed forward with curiosity to ascertain the cause of the tumult. But from one of them a fearful cry of surprise was heard as he recognised the persons before him. Sainte-Croix raised his eyes, and found himself face to face with Antoine, Marquis of Brinvilliers!”

The late combatants threw dust in the eyes of the lady’s husband cleverly enough by pretending that Sainte-Croix had rescued her from the unwelcome attentions of Theria, who had mistaken her in the uncertain light for a lady with whom he had an appointment. The cloak which the Marchioness wore, together with the darkness of the night, had prevented his discovering that she was not the person he expected until her cries had brought in Sainte-Croix, who was passing, as he said himself, “to his lodgings in the Rue des Bernardins.”

The lady went home with her husband, and Sainte-Croix retired to his lodgings, there to meditate on the perfidy of his mistress. The Chevalier de Sainte-Croix was even more learned in poisons, and less scrupulous in the use of them, than his mistress; and in his first gusts of passion, on discovering her treachery, he was inclined—in the hate of her that took temporary possession of him—to subject her to their effect; but reflection produced demoniacal results. She should be spared to kill those who ought to be near and dear to her!

“‘I will be her bane—her curse!’ he exclaimed. ‘I will be her bad angel!... And I will triumph over that besotted fool, her husband,’ etc.

“He opened a small, iron-clamped box, and brought from it a small packet, carefully sealed, and a phial of clear, colourless fluid.

“‘I have it! It is here—the source, not of life, but of death!’

“Almost as he speaks, he is summoned by the femme de chambre of the Marchioness to an interview at her residence at her father’s house, the Hôtel d’Aubray. The Chevalier found the enchantress in studied disarray. She might have been made up after one of Guido’s Magdalens,” says the author, “so beautiful were her rounded shoulders, so dishevelled her light hair,” etc.

The lovers were speedily reconciled, but the lady had an important communication to make—no less than the discovery of their intimacy by her husband, whom she felt sure had revealed the fact to her father, M. d’Aubray. A long pause, broken by Sainte-Croix:

“‘Marie,’ he said, ‘they must die, or our happiness is impossible.’”

The Marchioness was not yet hardened enough to receive this announcement with equanimity; and the lovers were still discussing the pros and cons of it, when they were surprised by Monsieur d’Aubray, who, entering by a secret door, “stood looking on the scene before him.” Any doubts of guilty intimacy, if he had any, were dispelled; and, after ordering his daughter to her chamber, he turned to Sainte-Croix, and said:

“‘Monsieur de Sainte-Croix, I will provide you with a lodging where you will run no risk of compromising the honour of a noble family.’”

And so saying, he produced a lettre de cachet, armed with which the exempts, who were waiting for him, speedily deposited M. de Sainte-Croix at the Bastille. The Marchioness, separated from her children and her husband, was exiled to Offremont, a family place some distance from Paris. Here she lived with her father, who so entirely believed in her repentance and determination to lead a new life that he proposed a speedy return to Paris.

“‘I have no wish to go, mon père,’ replied the hypocrite; ‘I would sooner remain here with you—for ever!’”

After much talk and reiterated professions of sorrow for the past, the Marchioness says, in reply to her father’s order that “she shall never speak to Sainte-Croix—who had been released from the Bastille—or recognise him again:

“‘You shall be obeyed, monsieur—too willingly.’”

The words had not long left her lips when she placed a lamp in the window of the room, to guide her lover to a prearranged assignation.

The awful interview that followed is described in Mr. Smith’s book.

The greater villain ran the risk of interruption in his lengthened arguments in favour of parricide; but hearing approaching footsteps, Sainte-Croix hurried away.

M. d’Aubray had gone to bed. A servant suggested the night-drink.

“‘I will give it to him myself, Jervais,’ said the Marchioness.”

Taking a jug from the man, she poured the contents into an old cup of thin silver; then, “with a hurried glance round the room, she broke the seals of the packet Sainte-Croix had left in her hands, and shook a few grains of its contents into the beverage. No change was visible; a few bubbles rose and broke upon the surface, but this was all.”

Sleep had surprised M. d’Aubray. His daughter touched him lightly, and he “awoke with the exclamation of surprise attendant upon being suddenly disturbed from sleep.

“‘I have brought your wine, mon père,’ said the murderess.

“‘Thanks, thanks, my good girl,’ said the old man, as he raised himself up in bed, and took the cup from the Marchioness. He drank off the contents, and then, once more bestowing a benediction upon his daughter, turned again to his pillow.”

Let those who desire to see how beauty can be retained, though disfigured by devilish passion, study the face of the Marchioness in this drawing. For skilful arrangement of light and shade, and of the objects that go to make up the mise en scène, and for natural action in the figures; this drawing takes the lead of all the admirable illustrations in the “Marchioness of Brinvilliers.”

CHAPTER IX.

“THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS” (continued).

A great reception was given at Versailles by the King. M. d’Aubray was “suffering from a sudden and fearful indisposition, but he insisted upon his daughter accepting an invitation, were it only to establish her entrée into society.”

There, amongst the trees in the gardens, the Marchioness encounters Sainte-Croix. “His face looked ghastly in the moonbeams, and his eyes gleamed with a light that conscience made demoniac in the eyes of the Marchioness.”

“‘You here!’ she exclaimed.

“‘Where should I be but in the place of rejoicing just now?’ replied Gaudin through his set teeth, and with a sardonic smile. ‘I am this moment from Paris. We are free!’

“‘My father?’ cried the Marchioness, as a terrible expression overspread her countenance.

“‘He is dead,’ returned Sainte-Croix, ‘and we are free!’”

There was a pause, and they looked at each other for nearly a minute.

“‘Come,’ at length said the Marchioness, ‘come to the ball.’”

A prominent and very interesting figure in Mr. Smith’s book is Louise Gauthier, a girl of comparatively humble birth, who had the misfortune to love Sainte-Croix with the intense self-sacrificing love that good women so often show for bad men, who return their affection with coldness and neglect. This girl, who had become the friend of Marotte Dupré, one of the actresses in the plays of Molière which were part of the attraction at the Versailles fête, accompanied the actress to Versailles, where she accidentally overheard a conversation between the Marchioness of Brinvilliers and M. de Sainte-Croix, which not only convinced her that the love for her that Sainte-Croix had once professed was given to another, but that some fearful tie existed between the two, caused by actions which had destroyed their happiness here and their hopes of it hereafter.

She came from her concealment, and was received with jealous fury by the Marchioness, who believed, or affected to believe, that the girl was at “the grotto” by appointment with Sainte-Croix. She bestowed what is commonly called “a piece of her mind” upon her lover, and concluded her rhapsody by informing him that from henceforth “we meet no more.” Louise, however, convinced the passionate Marchioness that she had made no appointment, but was at “the grotto” by, “perhaps, a dispensation of Providence,” in order that she might, having overheard their guilty conversation, so act upon their consciences as to “save them both.”

The first result of her good intentions is a declaration to the Marchioness by Sainte-Croix that, though there had been some love-passages between him and the girl, they were “madness, infatuation—call it what name you will; but you are the only one I ever loved.” Thus the ruffian speaks in the presence of the woman he had betrayed; but her love, though crushed, still urges her to become the man’s good angel, and, seizing his arm, she cries:

“‘Hear me, Gaudin. By the recollection of what we once were to each other—although you scorn me now, and the shadowy remembrance of old times—before these terrible circumstances, whatever they may be, had thus turned your heart from me and from your God, there is still time to make amends for all that has occurred. I do not speak for myself, for all those feelings have passed, but for you alone. Repent and be happy, for happy now you are not!’”

“Gaudin made no reply, but his bosom heaved rapidly, betraying his emotion.

“‘This is idle talk,’ said the Marchioness.... ‘Will you not come with me, Gaudin?’

“‘Marie!’ cried Gaudin faintly, ‘take me where you list. In life or after it, on earth or in hell, I am yours—yours only!’

“A flush of triumph passed over her face as she led Sainte-Croix from the grotto,” etc.

By the death of her father the Marchioness hoped, not only to have freed herself and her lover from an ever-recurring obstacle to their intercourse, but also to have inherited a much-needed sum of money—no less than “one hundred and fifty thousand livres were to have been the legacy to his daughter, Madame de Brinvilliers—and, what was more, her absolute freedom to act as she pleased. The money had passed to her brothers, in trust for her, and she was left entirely under their surveillance.

“‘This must be altered,’ said the Chevalier Sainte-Croix in an interview with the alter ego of an Italian vendor of poisons named Exili.’”

This man undertakes the “alteration,” or, in other words, the murder, of the two brothers for a “consideration” in the form of “one-fifth of whatever may fall to the Marchioness thereupon.

“‘Of course, there is a barrier between the brothers of Madame de Brinvilliers and myself,’ said Sainte-Croix to his accomplice, ‘that must for ever prevent our meeting. I will provide the means, and you their application.’”

Sainte-Croix had the right to claim the merit of this scheme for enriching the Marchioness, and at the same time relieving her from a guardianship that was impenetrable by her lover. The murder of her brothers seemed a trifling affair after the poisoning of her father, and she readily consented to assist in procuring a situation for the poisoner’s assistant—a man named Lechaussée—in the household of her brothers, who happened, very fortunately, to be in want of a servant at the moment. How this wretch administered the poison to the two brothers, who died instantly from its effect, the curious reader may ascertain—together with the other dramatic particulars—by consulting Mr. Albert Smith’s book, in which the incidents are told with great force and skill.

By eavesdropping in somewhat improbable places—notably at a grand fête at the Hôtel de Cluny, given by the Marquis de Lauzan, the Italian poisoner Exili becomes master of the guilty pair’s secrets. The Marchioness’s jealousy had been aroused during the evening by Sainte-Croix’s attention to an actress; and she left the great salon, and retired with her friend to a cabinet, in which, after the usual denial and reconciliation, secure, as they thought, from interruption, they discussed their demoniacal schemes. As they were about to pass from the room, “a portion of a large bookcase, masking a door, was thrown open, and Exili stood before them.”

The somewhat theatrical character that Leech gives to the figure of Sainte-Croix is much less apparent in this powerful drawing; and in the figures of Exili and the Marchioness there is not a trace of it. Though the Brinvilliers is masked according to a habit of the time, we feel that the mask conceals a beautiful face, distorted by fear, no doubt, but still lovely. The Italian is altogether excellent.

Exili loses no time in turning his information to account, and in reply to Sainte-Croix, who asks him what he wants, he replies that his trade as a sorcerer is failing, and as a poisoner he is in “a yet worse position, thanks to the Lieutenant of Police, M. de la Regnie.

“‘I must have money,’ he adds, ‘to enable me to retire and die elsewhere than on the Grève.’”

He ends by extorting from Sainte-Croix an undertaking to share with him the wealth obtained through the murder of the brothers. But if Exili relied upon the bond as a security of value, he displayed a degree of ignorance of the human nature of such individuals as Sainte-Croix that was surprising in so astute a person.

“To elude the payment of Exili’s bond,” says the author, “he had determined upon destroying him, running the risk of whatever might happen subsequently through the physician’s knowledge of the murders.” And he had, therefore, ordered a body of the “Guard Royal to attend, when they would receive sufficient proof of the trade Exili was driving in his capacity of alchemist.”

Sainte-Croix visited the Italian with excuses for the non-payment of the money early in the evening of the day on which the arrest was planned to take place later. To those excuses the poisoner listened angrily; he discovered some valuable jewels which Sainte-Croix wore. He had purposely brushed his hand against Sainte-Croix’s cloak, and in the pocket of it he felt some weighty substance. The chink assured him it was gold.

“‘You cannot have that,’ said Gaudin confusedly; ‘it is going with me to the gaming-table to-night.’

“‘You have rich jewels, too, about you,’ continued Exili, peering at him with a fearful expression. ‘The carcanet becomes you well. That diamond clasp is a fortune in itself.’

“‘Not one of them is mine,’ said Sainte-Croix. ‘They belong to the Marchioness of Brinvilliers.’”

The Italian affected to be satisfied with the assurance that the money should be paid next day, and Sainte-Croix’s doom was sealed. The alchemist “turned to the furnace to superintend the progress of some preparation that was evaporating over the fire.

“‘What have you there?’ asked Gaudin, who was anxious to prolong the interview till the guard could arrive.

“‘A venom more deadly than any we have yet known—that will kill like lightning, and leave no trace of its presence to the most subtle tests.’

“‘You will give me the secret?’ asked Gaudin.

“‘As soon as it is finished, and the time is coming on apace. You have arrived opportunely to assist me.’

“He took a mask with glass eyes, and tied it round his face.

“‘If you would see the preparation completed, you must wear one as well.’

“Exili took another visor, and, under pretence of rearranging the string, he broke it from the mask; and then, fixing it back with some resinous compound that would be melted by the heat of the furnace, he cautiously fixed it to Sainte-Croix’s face.

“‘I will mind the furnace whilst you go,’ said Gaudin, in reply to the alchemist, who said he must fetch some drugs required for further operations.

“At that moment Sainte-Croix heard an adjacent bell sound the hour at which he had appointed the guard to arrive.

“‘There is no danger in this mask, you say?’

“‘None,’ said Exili.

“Anxious to become acquainted with the new poison, and in the hope that as soon as he had acquired the secret of its manufacture the guard would arrive, Gaudin bent over the furnace. Exili had left the apartment, but as soon as his footfall was beyond Sainte-Croix’s hearing he returned, treading as stealthily as a tiger, and took up his place at the door to watch his prey. As Gaudin bent his head to watch the preparation more closely, the heat of the furnace melted the resin with which the string had been fastened. It gave way, and the mask fell on the floor, whilst the vapour of the poison rose full in his face almost before, in his eager attention, he was aware of the accident.

“One terrible scream—a cry which, once heard, could never be forgotten—not that of agony, or terror, or surprise, but a shrill and violent indrawing of the breath, resembling rather the screech of some huge, hoarse bird of prey irritated to madness, than the sound of a human voice—broke from Gaudin’s lips. Every muscle of his face was contorted into the most frightful form; he remained a second, and no more, wavering at the side of the furnace, and then fell heavily on the floor. He was dead.”

This terrible death-scene has found a perfect illustrator in John Leech. How admirable is the fiendish expression of the poisoner as he gloats over the body of his victim, which is drawn with a power and truthfulness altogether perfect! Every detail of the laboratory how skilfully introduced, how effectively rendered!

The alchemist behaved on the occasion as might be expected.

“He darted at the dead body like a beast of prey; and drew forth the bag of money, which he transferred to his own pouch. He next tore away every ornament of any value that adorned Gaudin’s costly dress....”

While at this congenial occupation, “the bristling halberts of the guard appeared.

“‘Back!’ screamed Exili. ‘Keep off, or I will slay you and myself, so that not one shall live to tell the tale! Your lives are in my hands,’ continued the physician, ‘and if you move one step forward they are forfeited.’

“He darted through a doorway at the end of the room as he spoke, and disappeared. The guard pressed forward; but, as Exili passed out at the arch, a mass of timber descended like a portcullis and opposed their further progress. A loud and fiendish laugh sounded in the souterrain, which grew fainter and fainter, till they heard it no more.”

The poisoner escaped—for a time. He was captured afterwards, tried, and, of course, condemned to death—a merciful death compared with that which befell him on his way to execution at the hands of the infuriated people, by whom his guards were overpowered, and after being almost torn to pieces, he was thrown into the Seine.

The toils were now closing round the miserable Marchioness de Brinvilliers. The wretched woman had reached the inconceivable condition of degradation said to be common to successful murderers when impunity has followed their first crimes—that of killing for killing’s sake. She put on the clothes of a religeuse, attended the hospitals, and poisoned the patients. Their dying cries were music to her, their agonies afforded her the keenest pleasure. To the student of French criminal history this is no news. I note it here so that the historian of the woman’s crimes should not be thought to have invented incidents that existed only in his imagination. Mr. Smith had the best authority for all the murders with which he charges Madame de Brinvilliers.

The death of Sainte-Croix was followed by the usual police regulation where foul play is suspected. Seals were affixed to his effects, amongst which poisons were discovered that were proved to be the property of the Marchioness of Brinvilliers. The murderess, terror-stricken, fled from Paris; and, though hotly pursued, she escaped into Belgium, and sought refuge in a religious house, where she took “sanctuary.” The pursuers were so near that, as she jumped from her carriage at the convent-door, she left her cloak in the hands of the exempt. She turned upon him, says the author, “with a smile of triumph that threw an expression of demoniac beauty over her features, and cried:

“‘You dare not touch me, or you are lost body and soul!’”

I must again refer my reader to Mr. Albert Smith’s book if he wishes to learn how the exempt, disguised as an abbé, beguiled the Marchioness from her sanctuary, and content myself with showing—or rather in letting Leech show—how she looked when the police-officer dropped his disguise and she found herself seized by his men.

The details given by Mr. Albert Smith of the last hours of Madame de Brinvilliers are, though painful reading, very remarkable. The Docteur Pirot, who passed nearly the whole of his time at the Conciergerie, has left records of which the author has availed himself, as well as from the letters of Madame de Sévigné. Those who wish to “sup full of horrors” can satisfy themselves by reading the account of the torture by water which was inflicted upon the miserable woman to induce her to betray her accomplices. But there were none to betray. Her only accomplice was dead. Her sufferings on the rack very nearly cheated the headsman, for, as they culminated “in a piercing cry of agony, after which all was still, the graffier, fearing that the punishment had been carried too far, gave orders that she should be unbound.” On her way to execution, she was attended by the constant Pirot. The tumbrel stopped before the door of Nôtre Dame, and a paper was put into her hands, from which she read, in a firm voice, a confession of her crimes. The tumbrel again advanced with difficulty through the dense crowds, portions of which, “slipping between the horses of the troops who surrounded it, launched some brutal remark at Marie with terrible distinctness and meaning; but she never gave the least sign of having heard them, only keeping her eyes intently fixed upon the crucifix which Pirot held up before her.”

In this drawing Leech’s power over individual character may be noted in the diversity of type amongst the hooting crowd round the tumbrel. The shrinking form of the prisoner is very beautiful.

When the Place de Grève was reached the execrations of the mob had ceased, and “a deep and awful silence” prevailed, “so perfect that the voices of the executioner and Pirot could be plainly heard,” says the chroniclers. I pass over harrowing details. The beautiful head of the poisoner was struck off by a single sword-stroke, and the executioner, turning to Pirot, said:

“‘It was well done, monsieur, and I hope madame has left me a trifle, for I deserve it.’”

He then “calmly took a bottle from his pocket and refreshed himself with its contents.”

If the short extracts from the history of this great criminal have enabled my readers more clearly to understand and enjoy Leech’s illustrations, my object in selecting them has been realized.

CHAPTER X.

“A MAN MADE OF MONEY.”—DOUGLAS JERROLD.

Knowing that this extraordinary book was illustrated by John Leech, and hearing that it contained some of his best work, it became my duty to make a sufficient acquaintance with the book to enable me to criticise and explain the drawings to my readers. I tried “skimming,” but the power of the book, and the brilliancy of the wit in it, so attracted me that I read the whole of it.

It is not my province, and it is certainly not in my power, to pose as a critic of literary work; and the hero—the man made of money, with a heart made of bank-notes instead of flesh and blood, containing within himself a bank that could be drawn upon to any amount—is so wonderful a being as to place him out of the category of human creatures, and altogether beyond criticism. This gentleman’s name was Jericho. He had waited till he was forty, and then he married a widow with three children; two of them were girls, the third a young gentleman of whom those who knew him best said, “He was born for billiards.” There was no love lost between Mr. Jericho and his step-children; in fact, they cordially hated him, and he returned the compliment. Their name was Pennibacker, inherited from their father, Captain Pennibacker, whose loving wife “was made a widow at two-and-twenty by an East Indian bullet.” Mr. Jericho was one of that large class which, though really needy, manœuvres successfully to be considered wealthy. His step-children considered him as “a rich plum-cake, to be sliced openly or by stealth among them.” The widow Pennibacker was first attracted to him by “a whispered announcement that he was a City gentleman. Hence Jericho appeared to the imagination of the widow with an indescribable glory of money about him.”

Mrs. Jericho desired to make a few purchases, and she approached her husband with a cry familiar to most of us:

“‘Mr. Jericho, when can you let me have some money?’”

The lady’s confidence in her husband’s wealth ought to have been shaken by what followed her application. Mr. Jericho turned a deaf ear to the appeal, which was repeated in every variety of tone and accent.

At length, “waving her right hand before her husband’s face with a significant and snaky motion,” she reiterated her demand with a terrible calmness:

“‘When can I have some money?’

“‘Woman!’ cried Jericho vehemently, as though at once and for ever he emptied his heart of the sex; and, rushing from the room, he felt himself in the flattering vivacity of the moment a single man. ‘I’m sure, after all, I do my best to love the woman,’ thought Jericho, ‘and yet she will ask me for money.’”

Disgusted with these unreasonable demands for money, Mr. Jericho determines to revenge himself by taking a day’s pleasure with three special friends, to be ended by “a quiet banquet at which the human heart would expand in good fellowship, and where the wine was above doubt.”

The dinner was a great success. It was very late—or rather somewhat early, as the sparrows were twittering from the eaves—when Mr. Jericho sought the marital couch, in which, too, his “wife Sabilla” was evidently “in a sound, deep, sweet sleep.”

“Untucking the bed-clothes, and making himself the thinnest slice of a man, Jericho slides between the sheets; and there he lies feloniously still, and he thinks to himself—Being asleep, she cannot tell how late I came to bed. At all events, it is open to dispute, and that is something.

“‘Mr. Jericho, when can you let me have some money?’

“With open eyes, and clearly ringing every word upon the morning air, did Mrs. Jericho repeat this primal question.

“And what said Jericho? With a sudden qualm at the heart, and with a stammering tongue, he answered:

“‘Why, my dear, I thought you were sound asleep.’”

Here follows a dialogue in the vein of the “Caudle Lectures,” in which Jerrold gives his wit and humour full play. To the perusal of the “give-and-take” passage of arms I cordially commend my readers. The dialogue closes with these words:

“‘I’m sure it’s painful enough to my feelings, and I feel degraded by the question, nevertheless I must and will ask you—When will you let me have some money?’”

This was the last straw, and Jericho groaned out:

“‘I wish to Heaven I was made of money!’”

To which Mrs. Jericho retorted, “in a low, deep, earnest voice:

“‘I wish to Heaven you were!’”

Silence came at last, and in the midst of it Jericho “subsided into muddled sleep; snoring heavily, contemptuously, at the loneliness of his spouse.”

And now two fleas—an elder and younger flea—come upon the scene, and proceed to dine, or sup, upon Mr. Jericho’s brow.

A long conversation ensues between these interesting creatures, in which the elder flea describes to his son how a man’s heart was changed into inexhaustible bank-notes.

“‘Miserable race!’ said the father flea, with his beautiful bright eye shining pitifully upon Jericho; ‘miserable, craving race, you hear, my son! Man in his greed never knows when he has wherewithal. He gorges to gluttony; he drinks to drunkenness; and you heard this wretched fool who prayed to Heaven to turn him—heart, brain, and all—into a lump of money.’”

How the operation was effected may be learnt from Mr. Jerrold’s book. One result of it was a most troubled and miserable night to the dreamer Jericho, whose complaints to his wife when he awoke met with no sympathy.

“‘If I were to live a thousand years, I shouldn’t forget last night!’ groaned Jericho.

“‘Very likely not,’ said Mrs. Jericho; ‘I’ve no doubt you deserve to remember it. I shouldn’t wonder——’”

Mrs. Jericho’s want of money is intensified by the wants of her son Basil, whose luck at billiards may have failed him just when his creditors were most pressing.

“‘Well, what does the old fellow say, the scaly old griffin? What’s he got to answer for himself?’” This was “the sudden question put to Mrs. Jericho on her return to the drawing-room, after the interview with her husband. ‘Come, what is it? Will he give me some money? In a word,’ asked young hopeful, ‘will he go into the melting-pot, like a man and a father?’

“‘My dear Basil, you mustn’t ask me,’ replied Mrs. Jericho.

“‘Oh, mustn’t I, though!’ cried Basil. ‘Ha, you don’t know the lot of people that’s asking me; bless you, they ask a hundred times to my once!’”

The Jerichos have some rich friends, the Carraways, who live in a mansion called Jogtrot Hall, “the one central grandeur, the boast and the comfort of the village of Marigolds.” To a fête at the Hall comes an invitation to the Jerichos. It had always been Mrs. Jericho’s ambition that her girls should—“in her own nervous words”—make a blow in marriage, and she felt that perhaps the time had come. But the girls’ dresses—the “war-paint,” as Mr. Basil put it—there was the difficulty, only to be surmounted by Mr. Jericho’s yielding to the repeated cry, “When will you let me have some money?”

With but faint hopes of success, Mrs. Jericho seeks her husband in his study. In a long colloquy, she urges the importance of her daughters’ appearance at this “grand party,” and the necessity for an advance to enable them to do so properly. Mr. Jericho turns a deaf ear to her appeal, till suddenly a wonderful change comes over him.

“Quite a new look of satisfaction gleamed from his eyes, and his mouth had such a strange smile of compliance! What could ail him?”

The charm was working, the marvellous change was in operation. Mrs. Jericho fears for her husband’s sanity. “‘He doesn’t look mad,’ thought Mrs. Jericho, a little anxious.

“‘I feel as if I had got new blood, new flesh, new bones, new brain! Wonderful!’ Jericho trod up and down the room and snapt his fingers. ‘Something’s going to happen,’ said he.”

And something did indeed happen. The transformation was complete; the hard heart had given place to illimitable money.

“‘You will let me have the money?’ repeated Mrs. Jericho.

“Jericho answered not a word, but withdrew his hand from his breast. Between his finger and his thumb he held in silver purity a virgin Bank of England note for a hundred pounds. Mrs. Jericho ran delightedly off with the money.

“And Jericho sat with his heart beating faster. Again he placed his hand to his breast, again drew forth another bank-note. He jumped to his feet, tore away his dress, and, running to a mirror, saw therein reflected, not human flesh, but over the region of the heart a loose skin of bank-paper, veined with marks of ink. He touched it, and still in his hand lay another note. His thoughtless wish had been wrought into reality. Solomon Jericho was in very truth a Man made of Money.”

The fête at Jogtrot Hall was a great success. The guests were many, and some of them distinguished. The Honourable Mr. Candytuft, Colonel Bones, Commissioner Thrush, and Dr. Mizzlemist, of Doctors’ Commons, must be noted, as they have to be dealt with pictorially by Leech hereafter. After a variety of entertainments, some twenty or thirty hungry guests graced a table under a long, wide tent, on which “there were the most delicious proofs of the earth’s goodness, with every kitchen mystery.” The host, Mr. Carraway, took the head of the table; Mr. Jericho, “dignified and taciturn, graced the board.” The orator on the occasion was Dr. Mizzlemist, who had been seized with a passion to drink everybody’s health. For the third time he rose to give “the health of Solomon Jericho, Esquire, an honour to his country.”

“In the course of his speech the Doctor delivered himself with so much energy that at the same time he stuck the fork, which had served him in emphasizing the Jericho virtues, between the bones of Mr. Jericho’s right hand, pinning it where it lay.

“‘It is nothing,’ said the philosophic Jericho.”

The change in Mr. Jericho’s appearance, from the full-faced, healthy-looking individual of Leech’s first drawing, to the spare, hollow-cheeked man at the banquet, is to be accounted for by the fact that, after each application to the strange bank established in Mr. Jericho’s breast, his whole form shrinks; he becomes thinner and thinner, to the alarm of his tailor, who “says, as he measures the changed man:

“‘Six inches less round the body, as I’m a sinner! Six inches less, Mr. Jericho, and I last took your measure six weeks ago.’”

At the Carraway fête the Misses Jericho made, and improved, the acquaintance of the Hon. Mr. Candytuft, and of an incredible idiot, Sir Arthur Homadod. The idiot was as beautiful as he was foolish; he was therefore handsome beyond the dreams of beauty. Whatever had taken the place of the mind in the baronet was impressed by Miss Agatha Pennibacker, and that virgin’s heart being free, she lost it to Sir Arthur. The Hon. Mr. Candytuft, having an eye to the enormous fortune supposed to be possessed by Mr. Jericho, and being desirous to secure the portion of it that would of course fall to his step-daughter, made love to Miss Monica with considerable success.

In the meantime the ladies wish to go to Court; in this they are encouraged by Candytuft; and, to enable them to make a proper figure there, costly jewels are required. To Candytuft and Jericho enter Mrs. J., “with a magnificent suite of jewels.

“‘Aren’t they beautiful, my dear Solomon?’ said she....

“‘You know, my dear,’ said Mrs. Jericho, in her sweetest, most convincing voice, ‘it would be impossible to go to Court without diamonds. One isn’t dressed without diamonds.’

“‘Court!’ Jericho opened his eyes, and a wan smile broke on his thin, blank cheek. ‘Are you going to Court?’

“‘Why, of course—are we not, dear Mr. Candytuft? What would be thought of us if we did not pay our homage to——’

“The sentence was broken by the sudden appearance of Monica and Agatha, each bearing a jewel-case, and looking radiant with the possession.

“‘Thank you, dear papa,’ said Monica, curtseying and smiling her best to Jericho.

“‘They’re beautiful. Thank you—dear, dearest papa,’ cried the more impulsive Agatha.

“‘Look!’ said Monica, and she exhibited her treasure.

“‘Look!’ cried Agatha, and she half dropped upon one knee, on the other side, to show her jewels.

“‘Beautiful!’ cried Candytuft. ‘Pray, ladies, don’t stir.’

“The girls, with pretty wonder on their faces, kept their positions on either side of Jericho.

“‘My dear madam’—and Candytuft appealed to Mrs. Jericho—‘is not this a delightful group—an exquisite family picture? It ought to be painted.’”

Mr. Candytuft is right. The graceful figures of the girls, the attenuated figure of papa, in whose hopeless expression one sees the dread of further attenuation, together with his own perfect presentment, would make—indeed, does make—an admirable picture. The jewels cost one thousand pounds: ten calls have to be made upon the supernatural bank. They are made, and the jeweller is paid. And the result! For some minutes after the departure of the tradesman Jericho sat motionless—all but breathless. He would, however, know his fate. He took out the silk lace with which an hour ago he had measured his chest. Again he passed it round his body. He had drawn upon the bank, and he had shrunk an inch.

Truly he was a man made of money—money was the principle of his being, for with every note he paid away a portion of his life.

Poor Mr. Carraway was ruined through no fault of his own. Jogtrot Hall was sold, and Jericho bought it. Thirty thousand pounds’ worth of flesh had he sacrificed to buy to himself a country mansion. He had become a member of Parliament, and at the same time become so thin that his tailor declared, “It’s like measuring a penknife for a sheath.” “Why,” said the tailor to his wife, “he isn’t a man at all, but a cotton-pod. He can’t have no more stomach than a ’bacco-pipe.” In fact, it was the growing belief of a large circle that Jericho was no flesh, no man, at all. “He was made up of coats,” ran the rumour, “like an onion.”

The insolence that is sometimes the accompaniment of great riches took full possession of Mr. Jericho, and he found an occasion to treat Colonel Bones to a specimen of it. Almost without provocation the Colonel was called “a toad-eater! a bone-picking pauper!” etc. For this insult the Colonel declared he would have Mr. Jericho’s blood, and in pursuance of that object he sent the millionaire a challenge. Jericho fought very hard to avoid fighting, but his second, Mr. Candytuft, prevailed, and the belligerents met in Battersea Fields. Mr. Commissioner Thrush waited upon the angry Colonel, and the celebrated Dr. Dodo was there to attend to the wounded. The seconds confer; the men are placed. Candytuft looked at them with an eye of admiration. The signal was given.

“Colonel Bones fires, and his ball goes clear through Jericho’s bosom, knocking off a button in its passage, and striking itself flat against a pile of bricks.”

“‘A dead man!’ cried the doctor, running to Jericho.

“‘My friend,’ exclaimed Candytuft, ‘have you made your will?’

“‘Eh? What’s the matter?’ said Jericho.

“‘Matter!’ exclaimed Dr. Dodo, and he pointed his cane to the hole in the front of Jericho’s coat, immediately over the region of his heart. ‘Matter! It’s the first time I ever heard a man with a bullet clean through his breast ask—What’s the matter!’”

The Colonel’s ball had passed through Jericho’s bank-note-paper breast, and Jericho lived and moved and was none the worse for it. Jericho fired in the air.

An ugly atmosphere was collecting about Mr. Jericho, and he was aware of it. “His own family saw in him a man of mysterious attributes. Monica turned pale at the smallest courtesy of her parent, and Agatha, suddenly meeting him on the staircase, squealed and ran away as from a fiend.

“Mr. Jericho went on a rejoicing conqueror. His huge town mansion, burning with gold—massive, rich, and gorgeous; for the Man of Money was far the most substantial, the most potent development of his creed, whereby to awe and oppress his worshippers——”

Mrs. Jericho had made up her mind that it was time her daughters were “settled in life, and she said as much to her husband.”

“‘Your girls, my dear, have my free permission to settle when and where they like,’ said the husband.

“But in sounding Mr. Jericho as to his intentions in the matter of settlements, she could make no way whatever. At last she put the point-blank question:

“‘What do you propose to give the dear child?’ (alluding to Monica, for whose hand Candytuft was about to ask).

“‘Give! I’ll give a magnificent party on the occasion.’

“‘But the dowry; what dowry do you give?’

“‘Dowry! I thought, my dear, you observed marriage was no bargain? Why, you’re making it quite a ready-money transaction!’”

At this point the conversation was interrupted by Mr. Candytuft, who, before advocating his own case, warmly espoused that of his foolish friend, Sir Arthur Homadod, the accepted of Agatha.

“‘He’s as bashful as—as—upon my life I am at a loss for a simile. And as he and I are old friends, and as he knew that I should see you—in fact, he’s in the house at this moment, and came along with me—he desired me to inform you that Miss Agatha had consented to fix the—the—what d’ye call it—the happy day.’

“‘Wish them joy,’ said Jericho.

“‘As to the young lady’s dowry?’ hesitated Candytuft.

“‘I can’t give a farthing; can’t afford it, my dear Candytuft.’”

The ambassador then speaks for himself:

“‘You may have remarked my affection for Miss Monica? You must have remarked it?’

“‘I beg a thousand pardons,’ said the wag Jericho, ‘but it has quite escaped me.’

“Candytuft wanly smiled.

“‘In a word, my dear sir, we have come to the sweet conclusion that we were made for one another.’

“‘Dear me! Well, how lucky you should have met!’”

Mr. Candytuft beats about the bush for awhile, but at last comes abruptly to the point, saying:

“‘I must ask—you force me to be plain—what will you give with the young lady?’

“‘Not a farthing!’ cried Jericho. ‘Not one farthing!’ said the man of money with determined emphasis.

“‘What is the matter?’ said Mrs. Jericho, who entered the room at this juncture.

“‘Pooh! you know well enough,’ cried Jericho. ‘Mr. Candytuft wants to marry rich; but that’s not all—he wants to be handsomely paid for the trouble.’”

After awhile Jericho affects to agree to dower his step-daughter, and he says:

“‘Let us settle the sum, eh! Well, then, what sum would satisfy you?’”

It was a delicate question to put thus nakedly.

“‘Come, name a figure. Say five thousand pounds.’”

Candytuft looked blankly at Jericho, moving not a muscle.

“‘What do you say to seven?’

“Candytuft gently lifted his eyebrows, deprecating the amount.

“‘Come, then, we’ll advance to ten?’

“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.

Just at this time Mr. Jericho was offered a most satisfactory mortgage—so any way there was land for his money—no less than five-and-forty thousand pounds, by his friend the Duke of St. George.

Jericho lent the money, in the hope of climbing into the House of Lords with the assistance of the Duke; but this last drain upon his resources, with its penalty of attenuation, had left very little of him to go anywhere.

“He had shrunk,” says the author. “How horribly he had dwindled, how wretchedly small he had become! Ay, how small! He would measure himself, he would know the exact waste. Whereupon Jericho took the silken cord and passed it round his breast. Why, it would twice encircle him—twice! and a piece to spare. With horror and loathing he flung the cord into the fire. He would never again take damning evidence against himself.”

It became evident to Jericho that, if he desired to retain enough of his person to enable his friends and relations to recognise him, the drain upon the chest notes must cease.

“He would, therefore, not draw another note—no, not another. He would live upon what he had. He would turn the foolish superfluities about him into hard, tangible money.”

Bent upon turning everything belonging not only to himself, but to his wife and daughters, into cash, he sent for Mrs. Jericho.

“The trembling wife had scarcely power to meet the eyes of her helpmate. In two days twenty years seemed to have gathered upon him. His face looked brown, thin, and withered as last year’s leaf. His whole body bent and swayed like a piece of paper moved by the air. As he held his hand aloof, the light shone through it. It was plain there was some horrid compact between her lord and the infernal powers, or—it was all as one—the tyranny of conscience had worn him to his present condition.

“‘Mrs. Jericho, madam, you will instantly bring me all your diamonds—jewellery—all. Give like orders to your daughters, the mincing harpies that eat me.’”

The terrified woman remonstrated, asked for an explanation, offered to send for the doctor.

“‘Away with you! do as I command. Bring me all your treasures—all. And your minxes! See that they obey me too, and instantly.’

“‘Yes, my love, to be sure,’ said Mrs. Jericho, for she was all but convinced that Solomon’s reason was gone or going. It was best to humour him. ‘And why, my love, do you wish for these things? Of course you shall have them, but why?’

“‘To turn them into money, madam,’ cried Jericho, rubbing his hands. ‘We have had enough of the tomfoolery of wealth—I now begin to hunger for the substance. I’ll do without fashion. I’ll have power, madam—power!’”

The conversation continued, and Mrs. Jericho became more and more convinced that her husband was mad.

“‘Oh that Dr. Stubbs would make a morning call!’ silently prayed the wife.”

The man of money, having determined to dismantle his house and send his wife and daughters adrift, retired with one servant, all the rest being discharged, into “one of his garrets, a den of a place,” where the scullion had slept. The servant was the pauper grandfather of one of his footmen, an old man of “congenial weakness with Jericho. Indeed, there looked between them a strange similitude, twin brethren damned to the like sordidness, the like rapacity.”

Jericho had nicknamed the old man Plutus. Jericho and Plutus were in face and expression as like as two snakes.

Mrs. Jericho, assured of her husband’s madness, took counsel with her friends. Drs. Stubbs and Mizzlemist, Colonel Bones, Commissioner Thrush, and Candytuft met in conclave and listened to Mrs. Jericho’s account of her husband’s ravings; but she failed to convince the doctors that what a jury would consider insanity, was apparent in anything that the man of money had said or done. As Dr. Mizzlemist delivered this opinion, a crash was heard in an adjoining room—another, and another, and then a loud triumphant laugh from the throat of Jericho.

Wife and daughters, with jury of friends, started to their feet. Candytuft, ere he was aware—for had he reflected “a moment, he would as soon have unbarred a lion’s cage—opened the doors. And there stood Jericho, laden with spoil.”

Though Mr. Jericho was voted sane by the doctors, his conduct displayed a brutality for which madness would be the only excuse. The Jews were coming, everything was to be sold.

“‘Why stay you here?’ cried the man of money to his wife. ‘Why will you not be warned? In a few hours there will not be a bed for your fine costly bones to lie upon. Now will you depart?’”

The Jews wandered about the rooms, appraising everything. Jericho was anxious to avoid a “public hubbub,” as he called a sale.

“‘I want,’ said he to the brokers, ‘at a thought, to melt all you see, and have seen, into ready money. Take counsel together, I say, and make me an offer, a lumping offer, for the whole—eh?’”

The man of money ascended to his garret and awaited the Jews’ offer, which was promised for the evening. He was alone, “evening closed in, and the moon rose and looked reproachfully at the miser.”

The garret door opened, and Plutus appeared.

“‘Well, has it come?’ cried the master.

“‘Here it is,’ answered the servant, as he laid a letter upon the table.

“‘Well, now for their conscience!’ exclaimed the man of money.”

Light was required; there was a candle upon the table, and paper prepared to light it.

“Most precious paper—the heart’s flesh and blood of the man of money! For the devilish serving-man had folded a note (how obtained can it matter?)—a note peeled from the breast of his master, a piece of money, a part of the damned Jericho sympathizing with him.

“The man of money took the paper—the devil, with his ear upturned, crept closer to the door—and thrust it amidst the dying coals. A moment, and the garret is rent as with a lightning flash.

“Yelling, and all on fire, the man of money falls prostrate with hell in his face. Then his lips move, but not a sound is heard. And the fire communicated by the sympathy of the living note—the flesh of his flesh—like a snake of flame glides up his limbs, devouring them. And so he is consumed: a minute, and the man of money is a thin black paper ash. Now the night wind stirs it, and now a sudden breeze carries the cinereous corpse away, fluttering it to dust impalpable.”