I'd sweep the crossing in front of their windows, or I'd commit a small theft, and call on my high connections for a character--but being who and what I am, I might do any or all o these, and shock nobody.
'Next to take stock of my effects.

Let me see what my assets will bring when reduced to cash, for this time it shall be a sale.' And he turned to a table where paper and pens were lying, and proceeded to write.

'Personal, sworn under, let us say, ten thousand pounds.

Literature first.

To divers worn copies of _Virgil_, _Tacitus_, _Juvenal_, and _Ovid_, Caesar's _Commentaries_, and _Catullus_; to ditto ditto of _Homer_, _Lucian_, _Aristophanes_, _Balzac_, _Anacreon_, Bacon's _Essays_, and Moore's _Melodies_; to Dwight's _Theology_--uncut copy, Heine's _Poems_--very much thumbed, _Saint Simon_--very ragged, two volumes of _Les Causes Celebres_, Tone's _Memoirs_, and Beranger's _Songs_; to Cuvier's _Comparative Anatomy_, Shroeder on _Shakespeare_, Newman's _Apology_, Archbold's _Criminal Law_ and _Songs of the Nation_; to Colenso, East's _Cases for the Crown_, Carte's _Ormonde_, and _Pickwick_.