Such is Mr.Vigil's peculiar tact, such his special talent; these are the gifts--gifts by no means ordinary--which have made him Right Honourable, and recommended him to the confidence of successive badgers.
But though the committee was uninteresting to Mr.Vigil, it was not so to the speculative inhabitants of Limehouse, or to the credulous shopkeepers of Rotherhithe.

On the evening of the day on which Mr.Blocks was examined, the shares went up 20 per cent; and when his evidence was published _in extenso_ the next Saturday morning by the _Capel Court Share-buyer_, a periodical which served for Bible and Prayer-book, as well as a Compendium of the Whole Duty of Man, to Undy Scott and his friends, a further rise in the price of this now valuable property was the immediate consequence.
Now, then, was the time for Alaric to sell and get out of his difficulties if ever he could do so.

Shares which he bought for 30s.

were now worth nearly L2 10s.

He was strongly of opinion that they would fall again, and that the final result of the committee would leave them of a less value than their original purchase-money, and probably altogether valueless.