him with the gentle hope that his check was cashed in specie at the
Rialto Bank, and that he made a good use of the money.

Now, dear Don, in the great case of Virtue _vs_. Money, I appear for
the defendant. Confound Virtue, say I, and the whole tribe of the
Virtuous! I am as weary of both as was that sensible Athenian of
hearing Aristides called _The Just_; and if I had been there, and a
legal voter, I know into which box my humble oyster-shell would have
been plumped. Such was the vile, self-complacent habit of the
Athenians, that I suspect the best fellows then were not good fellows
at all. And what did the son of Lysimachus make by being recalled from
banishment? He died so poor, that he was buried at the public charge,
and left a couple of daughters as out-door pensioners upon public
charity. The Athenians, I aver, were a duncified race; and it would
have pleased me hugely to have been in the neighborhood when Alcibiades
rescinded his dog's charming tail,--a fine practical protest, although
unpleasant to the dog. Virtue may be well enough by way of variety; but
for a good, steady, permanent pleasure, commend me to Avarice! Yes, O
my Bobus, I, who was once, as to money, "still in motion of raging
waste," and, like Timon, "senseless of expense,"--I, who have many a
time borrowed cash of you with amiable recklessness, and have never
asked you to take it back again,--I, who have had many a race with the
constable, and have sometimes been overtaken,--I, who have in my callow
days spoken disrespectfully of Mammon in several charming copies of
verses,--I am waxing sordid. I am for the King of Lydia against Solon.
How do I know that the insolent Cyras was not blandished out of his
bloodthirsty intention of roasting his deposed brother by a little cash
which the son of Gyges had saved out of the wide, weltering wreck of
his wealth, and had concealed in his boots? Royal palms were not wholly
free from _pruritus_ even then. Why has this silly world still