hold goods, but not so the devouring element.
The devouring element was exceedingly hard
upon poor Mr. Lilyseed, or rather it would have
been hard upon him, if he had not been excessively
clever, prudent, and far-seeing. As it was,
the devouring element was left to wreak its
unruly vengeance upon a variety of fire-offices in
which Mr. Lilyseed was fully insured, and especially
upon the great office of the Happy-go-Lucky
Insurance Company. The Happy-go-Lucky
Insurance Company had plenty of money,
a jolly board of directors, and an historical name
and reputation, and they paid every demand
that was made upon them with the least possible
delay, and without any murmurs. The smaller
offices sometimes showed a disposition to be
waspish, but as their losses were reinsured in
the Happy-go-Lucky Office, it was not their
place to stand out in distinction from their
leader.

It was a somewhat peculiar thing, too, when
you came to think of it, that Mr. Lilyseed
should have been so singularly afflicted. He
called it "visited," when he was in a serious
mood; but, call it by any name, and the fact was
the same. A gas explosion at Birmingham; a
total burn-out at Norwich; another gas explosion
at Liverpool; and a fearful conflagration at
his shop and dwelling-house in London, were a
very remarkable series of accidents, to say the
least of them. Mr. Lilyseed and his family
were always saved—providentially saved—but
the destruction of property was always enormous.
Mr. Lilyseed had, once or twice, appeared with
a bruise, a scorch, a sprained joint, or a head of
hair singed, as if it had been prepared by a
barber; and, on one occasion, he was nearly
sacrificed to the fury of the devouring element;
but not quite—in fact, very far from quite. The
fires always occurred at a season of the year
when the old stock was supposed to be getting
dusty, the patterns stale, and the new stock had
just come in. The Happy-go-Lucky Insurance
Company, however, took no notice of this; and
after the last accident, they built a new block of
premises for the enterprising but unfortunate
linendraper. The lofty stone-fronted shop
formed a very different receptacle for
merchandise to the dingy, old, smoky-bricked
buildings on either side of it.

This last act of liberality on the part of the
Happy-go-Lucky Office did not seem to please
Mr. Lilyseed like the cash-payment form of
settlement that had been usually adopted. The
expenditure of the money was thereby largely
taken out of his hands, and he saw the gradual
erection of a new castle and trading establishment,
which left him with a very slender
balance at his banker's. True, he had the usual
payment for the usual stock that had been
consumed as usual; and the lease of the new
premises, by the rebuilding and improvements, was
thereby rendered so much more valuable as a
security for raising money. This was the
immense advantage that Mr. Lilyseed derived
from his last and fourth calamity by fire; and
yet he was not satisfied!

Mr. Lilyseed's commercial operations had
always been upon an ascending scale; that is to
say, when he paid a manufacturer's bill of two
hundred pounds, he bought four hundred
pounds' worth more goods from the same
person; and when, in other instances, he cleared
off four hundred pounds sterling of debt, he
accompanied it by taking on eight hundred
pounds sterling of credit. This kept his
warehouse well stocked with those materials of
trade, which, by a little dexterous, though,
perhaps, illegitimate manipulation, became the
stepping-stone to available cash, that, in its
turn, was useful in consolidating the structure
of Mr. Lilyseed's credit.

Mr. Lilyseed was careful to preserve all the
outward and visible signs, the forms, and the
decencies, or indecencies, of trade. He advertised;
he puffed, or was puffed; he connected
himself with a political movement and a social
movement; he registered a particular article of
clothing with a very ugly, eccentric shape, and a
more ugly, eccentric Greek title; he did everything,
in fact, that was usual or necessary in his
trade and position, except to make the ordinary
alarming sacrifices. For some reason, these
were never required in Mr. Lilyseed's establishment.
The stock was always pushed off, or
consumed (by fire) without them.

Mr. Lilyseed was worthy of a more extended
sphere of action. His financial abilities had
never been brought into contact with the bill
of exchange, or there is nothing that might
not have been expected as the result. His
business was nothing if not a ready-money
business, and it gave no opportunities or excuse
for drawing bills for goods that had really been
sold, or for imaginary transactions that had
never been entered into. When Mr. Lilyseed
accepted a bill that was drawn by one of his
manufacturers, he always did so with a sigh, as
he saw glimpses of a financial paradise stretching
before him, into which he was firmly
forbidden, for the present, to enter.

A person of Mr. Lilyseed's ingenuity and
resources was not, of course, to be left without a
substitute for the accommodating and accommodation
bill of exchange, although the substitute
was one of a very clumsy, inferior, and
inelastic nature.

Mr. Lilyseed had early placed himself in the
hands of the auctioneers, and had found them a
very useful and moneyed body of gentlemen.
As gay young men about town are often found
to be in the hands of the Jews, and yet
seem to lead a very agreeable life, notwithstanding,
so staid old shopkeepers about London
are often in the hands of the auctioneers,
and also lead a very agreeable life, notwithstanding.

A far less clever man than Mr. Lilyseed might
have found an auctioneer prepared and willing
to advance two-thirds of the cost-price value of
goods intended for sale, when every newspaper
is full of advertisements from such convenient
business gentlemen. A far less cautious man than
Mr. Lilyseed might have had no fear in sending