Whatever appearance of indifference my vanity enabled me to put on, I was thunderstruck with this demand, which I had no sooner satisfied, than I hastened into company, with a view of beguiling my cares with conversation, or drowning them with wine.
After dinner, a party was accordingly made in the coffee-house, from whence we adjourned to the tavern, where, instead of sharing the mirth of the company, I was as much chagrined at their good humour as a damned soul in hell would be at a glimpse of heaven.

In vain did I swallow bumper after bumper! the wine had lost its effect upon me, and, far from raising my dejected spirits, could not even lay me asleep.

Banter, who was the only intimate I had (Strap excepted), perceived my anxiety, and, when we broke up, reproached me with pusillanimity, for being cast down at my disappointment that such a rascal as Strutwell could be the occasion of.

I told him I did not at all see how Strutwell's being a rascal alleviated my misfortune; and gave him to understand that my present grief did not so much proceed from that disappointment, as from the low ebb of my fortune, which was sunk to something less than two guineas.

At this declaration he cried, "Psha! is that all ?" and assured me there were a thousand ways of living in town without a fortune, he himself having subsisted many years entirely by his wit.