He is led into telling lies--my idea, you see, is to show the gradual corruption of the soul--calls himself the son of some great landed proprietor in Devonshire.

Meanwhile the coat becomes older and older, and he hardly dares to wear the trousers.

Can't you imagine the wretched man, after some splendid evening of debauchery, contemplating these garments--hanging them over the end of the bed, arranging them now in full light, now in shade, and wondering whether they will survive him, or he will survive them?
Thoughts of suicide cross his mind.

He has a friend, too, a man who somehow subsists upon selling small birds, for which he sets traps in the fields near Uxbridge.

They're scholars, both of them.