You must know that I was rather respected among our gents at the West Diddlesex, because I came of a better family than most of them; had received a classical education; and especially because I had a rich aunt, Mrs. Hoggarty, about whom, as must be confessed, I used to boast a good deal.  There is no harm in being respected in this world, as I have found out; and if you don’t brag a little for yourself, depend on it there is no person of your acquaintance who will tell the world of your merits, and take the trouble off your hands.

So that when I came back to the office after my visit at home, and took my seat at the old day-book opposite the dingy window that looks into Birchin Lane, I pretty soon let the fellows know that Mrs. Hoggarty, though she had not given me a large sum of money, as I expected—­indeed, I had promised a dozen of them a treat down the river, should the promised riches have come to me—­I let them know, I say, that though my aunt had not given me any money, she had given me a splendid diamond, worth at least thirty guineas, and that some day I would sport it at the shop.

“Oh, let’s see it!” says Abednego, whose father was a mock-jewel and gold-lace merchant in Hanway Yard; and I promised that he should have a sight of it as soon as it was set.  As my pocket-money was run out too (by coach-hire to and from home, five shillings to our maid at home, ten to my aunt’s maid and man, five-and-twenty shillings lost at whist, as I said, and fifteen-and-six paid for a silver scissors for the dear little fingers of Somebody), Roundhand, who was very good-natured, asked me to dine, and advanced me 7_l_. 1_s_. 8_d_., a month’s salary.  It was at Roundhand’s house, Myddelton Square, Pentonville, over a fillet of veal and bacon and a glass of port, that I learned and saw how his wife ill-treated him; as I have told before.  Poor fellow!—­we under-clerks all thought it was a fine thing to sit at a desk by oneself, and have 50_l_. per month, as Roundhand had; but I’ve a notion that Hoskins and I, blowing duets on the flute together in our second floor in Salisbury Square, were a great deal more at ease than our head—­and more in harmony, too; though we made sad work of the music, certainly.

One day Gus Hoskins and I asked leave from Roundhand to be off at three o’clock, as we had particular business at the West End.  He knew it was about the great Hoggarty diamond, and gave us permission; so off we set.  When we reached St. Martin’s Lane, Gus got a cigar, to give himself as it were a distingue air, and pulled at it all the way up the Lane, and through the alleys into Coventry Street, where Mr. Polonius’s shop is, as everybody knows.

The door was open, and a number of carriages full of ladies were drawing up and setting down.  Gus kept his hands in his pockets—­trousers were worn very full then, with large tucks, and pigeon-holes for your boots, or Bluchers, to come through (the fashionables wore boots, but we chaps in the City, on 80_l_. a year, contented ourselves with Bluchers); and as Gus stretched out his pantaloons as wide as he could from his hips, and kept blowing away at his cheroot, and clamping with the iron heels of his boots, and had very large whiskers for so young a man, he really looked quite the genteel thing, and was taken by everybody to be a person of consideration.