He opened one of the books.  Magdalen was no judge of the admirable correctness with which the accounts inside were all kept; but she could estimate the neatness of the handwriting, the regularity in the rows of figures, the mathematical exactness of the ruled lines in red and black ink, the cleanly absence of blots, stains, or erasures.  Although Captain Wragge’s inborn sense of order was in him—­as it is in others—­a sense too inveterately mechanical to exercise any elevating moral influence over his actions, it had produced its legitimate effect on his habits, and had reduced his rogueries as strictly to method and system as if they had been the commercial transactions of an honest man.

“In appearance, my system looks complicated?” pursued the captain.  “In reality, it is simplicity itself.  I merely avoid the errors of inferior practitioners.  That is to say, I never plead for myself; and I never apply to rich people—­both fatal mistakes which the inferior practitioner perpetually commits.  People with small means sometimes have generous impulses in connection with money—­rich people, never.  My lord, with forty thousand a year; Sir John, with property in half a dozen counties—­those are the men who never forgive the genteel beggar for swindling them out of a sovereign; those are the men who send for the mendicity officers; those are the men who take care of their money.  Who are the people who lose shillings and sixpences by sheer thoughtlessness?  Servants and small clerks, to whom shillings and sixpences are of consequence.  Did you ever hear of Rothschild or Baring dropping a fourpenny-piece down a gutter-hole?  Fourpence in Rothschild’s pocket is safer than fourpence in the pocket of that woman who is crying stale shrimps in Skeldergate at this moment.  Fortified by these sound principles, enlightened by the stores of written information in my commercial library, I have ranged through the population for years past, and have raised my charitable crops with the most cheering success.  Here, in book Number One, are all my Districts mapped out, with the prevalent public feeling to appeal to in each:  Military District, Clerical District, Agricultural District; et cetera, et cetera.  Here, in Number Two, are my cases that I plead:  Family of an officer who fell at Waterloo; Wife of a poor curate stricken down by nervous debility; Widow of a grazier in difficulties gored to death by a mad bull; et cetera, et cetera.  Here, in Number Three, are the people who have heard of the officer’s family, the curate’s wife, the grazier’s widow, and the people who haven’t; the people who have said Yes, and the people who have said No; the people to try again, the people who want a fresh case to stir them up, the people who are doubtful, the people to beware of; et cetera, et cetera.  Here, in Number Four, are my Adopted Handwritings of public characters; my testimonials to my own worth and integrity; my