I live on my clients, and I very willingly offer you half of them!' "Imagine, dear Paul, my astonishment, my dismay! I saw myself married to a hideous shrew,--son-in-law to a penniless scoundrel, and cheated out of my whole fortune! Compare this view of the question with that which had blazed on me when I contemplated being son-in-law to the rich Mr.Asgrave.I stormed at first.

Mr.Asgrave took up Bacon 'On the Advancement of Learning,' and made no reply till I was cooled by explosion.

You will perceive that when passion subsided, I necessarily saw that nothing was left for me but adopting my father-in-law's proposal.

Thus, by the fatality which attended me at the very time I meant to reform, I was forced into scoundrelism, and I was driven into defrauding a vast number of persons by the accident of being son-in-law to a great moralist.

As Mr.Asgrave was an indolent man, who passed his mornings in speculations on virtue, I was made the active partner.
I spent the day at the counting-house; and when I came home for recreation, my wife scratched my eyes out." "But were you never recognized as 'the stranger' or 'the adventurer' in your new capacity ?" "No; for of course I assumed, in all my changes, both aliases and disguises.