have been the first to have revenged his
death.'

"The language of course is that of Franklin,
who however gives it as the purport of
Augustus's speech, and adds, 'his veracity is
beyond all question with the party.' 'We
could perceive,' says Franklin, 'by the shouts
of applause, with which they filled the pauses
in his language, that they assented to his
arguments;' [that is, to his representation of
the superior power of those white men]; 'and
he told us they had expressed great sorrow
for having given so much cause of offence.'
He said, moreover, that they pleaded ignorance,
having never before seen white men;
that they had seen so many fine things
entirely new to them, that they could not
resist the temptation of stealing; they promised
never to do the like again; and gave
a proof of their sincerity by restoring the
articles that had been stolen. And thus
in an amicable manner was the affray concluded."

THE GOLDEN CALF.

READER, were you ever in—I have a difficulty
in expressing the word. Four little
letters would serve my turn; but I dare not
—this being above all for Household eyes—
write them down. I might say Tophet,
Hades, the place that is said to be paved
with good intentions, the locality where old
maids lead specimens of the simious race,
Purgatory, L'inferno, Tartarus; the debateable
land where Telemachus (under the
guidance of good Archbishop Fénélon, taking
the pseudonym of Mentor) went to seek for
Ulysses; all sorts of things; but, none of them
would come up in terseness and comprehensiveness
to the name the place is really
called by, and which it is really like.

Reader, were you ever in Bartholomew
Lane in the city of London. There is the
wall of the Bank of England; there the
Rotunda with those pleasant swing doors
that with their "out" and "in" seem to bear
the converse of Dante's immortal inscription;
for who enters there takes Hope along
with him—the hope of the residuary legatee,
and the executor, and the dividend warrant
bearer, and the government annuitant. There
are the men who sell the dog-collars; the
badly painted, well varnished pictures (did
ever anybody buy one of those pictures, save
perhaps a mad heir, frantic with the vanity
of youthful blood to spend the old miser his
grandfather's savings, and by misuse to
poison good?); the spurious bronze sixpenny
popguns; and the German silver pencil cases.
There, above all are sold those marvellous
pocket-books, with metallic pages, everlasting
pencils, elastic straps, snap-locks, almanacs of
the mouth, tables of the eclipses of the
moon, the tides, the price of stamps, compound
interest, the rate of wages, the birthdays
of the Royal Family, and the list of
London bankers—those pocket-books full of
artful pockets—sweetly smelling pouches—
for gold, silver, or notes, that suggest inexhaustible
riches; and that a man must buy
if he have money, and very often does buy,
being without, but hoping to have some. I
have such a pocket-book to this day. It is
old, greasy, flabby, white at the edges now;
but it burst with banknotes once—yea, burst
—the strap flying one way and the clasp the
other; and on its ass-skin opening pages
were memoranda of the variations of the
funds. There in the distance is Lothbury,
whose very name is redolent of bullion—the
dwelling-place of the golden Jones and the
Lloyds made of money; of auriferous gold-heavers
in dusky counting-houses, who shovel
out gold and weigh sovereigns until their
hands become clogged and clammy with the
dirt of dross, and they wash them perforce.
There is the great Mammon Club, the Stock
Exchange, where bulls and bears in white
hats and cutaway coats are now frantic about
the chances of the Derby favourite, and the
next pigeon match at the Red House; now
about three and a quarter for the account
and Turkish scrip; now about a "little
mare," name unknown, that can be backed
to do wonderful things, anywhere, for any
amount of money; but who allow no one to
be frantic within the walls of their club
under a subscription of ten guineas per
annum; tarring, feathering, flouring, bonneting,
and otherwise demolishing all those
who dare to worship Mammon without a
proper introduction and a proper burnt-offering.
All Bartholomew Lane smells of
money. Orange tawny canvas bags; escorted
Pickford vans with bullion for the bank
cellars; common-looking packing-cases full
of ingots that might turn Bethnal Green
into Belgravia; bankers' clerks with huge
pocket-books secured by iron chains round
their bodies, holding bills and cheques for
thousands; stockbrokers, billbrokers, share-brokers,
money-brokers' offices; greasy men
selling Birmingham sovereigns for a penny a
piece (and a wager, of course); auctioneers,
at the great roaring mart, knocking down
advowsons and cures of souls to the highest
bidder: there is gold everywhere in pockets,
hearts, minds, souls, and strengths—gold,
"bright and yellow, hard and cold"—gold
for bad and gold for good,—

"Molten, graven, hammer'd and roll'd,—
Heavy to get, and light to hold,
Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now with Bloody Queen Mary."

But how about the place I did not care to
name? This. Little reck the white-neck-clothed
clergymen of the Church of England,
so demure, so smug, so unimpeachable in
umbrella; the old ladies in their gray shawls
and coal-scuttle bonnets; the young spendthrifts
flushed with the announcement of so
much money standing in their names in
Consols, and eager to find brokers to sell out