rights of others, he certainly yielded none of his own; he attacked
his adversary at the right moment, and wearied him out with his
inflexible persistency. His merits were those of the Scapins of
ancient comedy; he had their fertility of resource, their cleverness
in skirting evil, their itching to lay hold of all that was good to
keep. In short, he applied to his own poverty a saying which the Abbe
Terray uttered in the name of the State,--he kept a loophole to become
in after years an honest man. Gifted with passionate energy, with a
boldness that was almost military in requiring good as well as evil
actions from those about him, and justifying such demands on the
theory of personal interest, he despised men too much, believing them
all corruptible, he was too unscrupulous in the choice of means,
thinking all equally good, he was too thoroughly convinced that the
success of money was the absolution of all moral mechanism, not to
attain his ends sooner or later.

Such a man, standing between the hulks and a vast fortune, was
necessarily vindictive, domineering, quick in decisions, yet as
dissimulating as a Cromwell planning to decapitate the head of
integrity. His real depth was hidden under a light and jesting mind.
Mere clerk as he was, his ambition knew no bounds. With one
comprehensive glance of hatred he had taken in the whole of society,
saying boldly to himself, "Thou shalt be mine!" He had vowed not to
marry till he was forty, and kept his word. Physically, Ferdinand was
a tall, slender young man, with a good figure and adaptive manners,
which enabled him to take, on occasion, the key-note of the various
societies in which he found himself. His ignoble face was rather
pleasant at first sight; but later, on closer acquaintance,
expressions were caught such as come to the surface of those who are
ill at ease in their own minds, and whose consciences groan at certain