can wait.  An astute company meet at William’s house and take supper in luxurious Roman style; then James casually suggests that the east end of the town is a disgrace to the council.  Until the block of houses in Blank Street is pulled down and a broad road is run straight to join the main street, the place will be the laughingstock of strangers.  James is eloquent.  How curious it is that the new road which is to redeem the town from shame must run right over Billy’s building plots, and how very remarkable it is to think that the corporation pays a swinging price for the precious land!  Billy looks more prosperous than ever; he sets up another horse, reduces rivals to silence by driving forth in a new victoria, and becomes more and more the familiar bosom friend of the bank manager.  I might go on to give a score of examples showing how innocent rate-payers are fleeced by barefaced robbers, but the catalogue would be only wearisome.  Let any man of probity venture to force his way into one of these dens of thieves and see how he will fare!  It is a comic thing that the gangs of jobbers consider that they have a prescriptive right to plunder at large, and their air of aggrieved virtue when they are challenged by a person whom they call an “interloper” is among the most droll and humiliating farces that may be seen in life.  The whole crew will make a ferocious dead set at the intruder who threatens to pull their quarry away from them; he will be coughed down or interrupted by insulting noises, and he may esteem himself highly fortunate if he is not asked to step outside and engage in single combat.  Everything that mean malignity can do to balk him will be done, and, unless he is a very strong man physically and morally, the opposition will tire him out.  There is usually one dominant family in such towns—­for the possibility of making a heavy fortune by a brewery or tannery or factory in these quiet places is far greater than any outsider might fancy.  The members of the ruling family and their henchmen arise in their might to crush the insolent upstart who wants to see accounts and vouchers:  the chairman will rise and say, “Let me tell Mr. X. that me and my family were old established inhabitants in this ancient borough long before he came, and we’ll be here long after he has gone bankrupt.  We don’t require no strangers:  the people in this borough has always managed their own affairs, and by the help of Providence they’ll go on in the good old way in spite of any swell that comes a-sniffin’ and a-smellin’ and a-pryin’ and a-askin’ for accounts about this and that and the other; and I tell the gentleman plain, the sooner this council sees his back the better they’ll be pleased; so, if he’s not too thick in the skin, let him take a friendly hint and take himself off.”  A withering onslaught like this is received with tumultuous applause, and other speakers follow suit.  It is seldom that a man has nerve enough to stand such brutality from his hoggish assailants, and the ring of jobbers