absent from the house except when sent upon
some errand. He does all sorts of odd jobs.
He minds the children and makes them toys.
He stables the horse, drives bargains, and is
sent to wrangle about tradesmen's bills. He
must overlook the servants—a hard task this—
and tell of their short-comings; he must give
the benefit of zeal, experience, and honesty,
all for mere bread and board. Yet I am
afraid I could never gain the friendship of
Captain Jorgey; for he cannot conceive it
possible that any one should think ill of his
spoiler, or suppose himself to be unfairly used.

The man to whom Captain Jorgey owes
his ruin is no ogre for all that; he is merely
a very frequent specimen of the modern
Greek. Still young, he has acquired a very
considerable fortune. In reality superficial,
empty, and ignorant; acquainted with no
one art or science, and hardly able to read
and write correctly, he has yet a natural
acuteness that would puzzle the wisest. He
is indeed one of the most successful sharpers
of the corn market; and that is saying a great
deal. He has the most pleasant, frank,
plausible manner possible; yet he only speaks
truth by accident. He seems to divine other
men's thoughts and intentions by a sort of
instinct; and no one ever comes in contact
with him without somehow or other getting
the wrong end of an argument or a bargain.
He will commit the most impudent robberies
with a cool air of assurance that is
positively astounding. He is hard, unjust,
oppressive, cunning, false, tricky, selfish; all
with the air of an injured man. He has his
temper under the most extraordinary
command, and would never by any chance let slip
an expression of a disagreeable nature towards
anybody, from whom he might ever by any
possibility have the chance of gaining sixpence.
To dependants he is of course as heartless
a tyrant as ever insulted worth or embittered
misfortune. No man has ever shown him to
appear in the wrong. His labours are only
known by their fruits. Somehow or other
everybody who makes his acquaintance and
gets mixed up with him in business, grows
poorer, and yet you cannot convict him of
dishonesty. The fact is there; the reason is a
mystery. His very victims are constrained
to speak well of him, for they can prove no
evil. His acquaintances seem all under
obligations to him. Persons formerly thriving
and well to do in the world, pass
beneath his yoke into difficulties in a
manner that is almost magical. When they
fail and sink into utter ruin, he has always
contrived to get paid. He has foreseen what
was going to happen, and has disposed of
their acceptances—sold them perhaps to some
friend who desired a safe investment, and
who had asked his advice. In short, he is
out of the scrape, let who will be in it. To
be sure there are one or two people who look
shyly at him. It is possible to be sharper
than some men, but not to be sharper than
every man. Strange whispers go about
respecting him; his mother is said to have
died in extreme poverty, and one of his
brothers to have got into trouble and to have
never got out of it. But he does not mind
such reports as these, for he has one of his
poor relations living with him and can point
triumphantly to her. To be sure she cooks
and superintends the washing, but he cannot
be expected to entertain her for nothing;
although she is said to be a perfect wonder of
economy, and to live altogether on boiled
salads. There is a grand gold chain which
her important relative wears rather ostentatiously,
and which is said to have belonged to
her deceased husband, as well as the watch
which is attached to it; but that's nobody's
business. It is natural that dependants
should show some substantial marks of
gratitude to their protectors, if they have
any.

It does not. seem on the whole astonishing
that the friendship of such a genius as
this should have been disastrous to Captain
Jorgey. Shortly after its commencement,
the Sea Captain's affairs got into a maze, and
they never got out of it. He had then an
olive garden, and a little vessel of his own,
with which he went about to the ports in the
neighbourhood, and sometimes got as far as
Malta, driving a thriving trade. But as soon
as he began to carry cargoes for Kyrios Ozlan
and to leave the management of his affairs at
home in the hands of his employer, everything
went wrong. His olive trees produced
no fruit, his house was burnt down; and,
though everything was destroyed in the fire,
he has since seen some things about the
premises of his patron so like his own as to
be quite surprising. But this does not shake
his simple good faith, and he seems to me so
respectable and happy in it that I sometimes
wonder if after all he is not really the wiser
man of the two. My opinion is not at all
disturbed by the fixed smile which is always
on the lips of Kyrios Ozlan; for I cannot help
fancying that he must sometimes feel
uncomfortable, especially in the long windy winter's
nights.

Captain Jorgey's olive garden and his
pleasant house by the sea-side have passed
into the hands of his patron. It makes
one quite uncomfortable to hear him talk
about them with such complacency, and brag
of their produce. It is painful to see Captain
Jorgey on the summer afternoons toiling
home with a large basket of fruit, proud
that the land which once was his at least
produces something. Kyrios Ozlan however
only receives them with a grunt of
disapprobation (it is not worth his while to flatter
Captain Jorgey now), and an ungraceful
observation about the expense of gardening;
so that the modest sailor really feels quite
puzzled that the property which was once a
little fortune to him, should be such a
burthen to his patron. He feels quite disgraced