“I’ve my blue coat and brass buttons at home, sir.”

“What! that thing with the waist between your shoulders that you wore at Mrs. Brough’s party?” (It was rather high-waisted, being made in the country two years before.) “No—­no, that will never do.  Get some new clothes, sir,—­two new suits of clothes.”

“Sir!” says I, “I’m already, if the truth must be told, very short of money for this quarter, and can’t afford myself a new suit for a long time to come.”

“Pooh, pooh! don’t let that annoy you.  Here’s a ten-pound note—­but no, on second thoughts, you may as well go to my tailor’s.  I’ll drive you down there:  and never mind the bill, my good lad!” And drive me down he actually did, in his grand coach-and-four, to Mr. Von Stiltz, in Clifford Street, who took my measure, and sent me home two of the finest coats ever seen, a dress-coat and a frock, a velvet waist-coat, a silk ditto, and three pairs of pantaloons, of the most beautiful make.  Brough told me to get some boots and pumps, and silk stockings for evenings; so that when the time came for me to go down to Fulham, I appeared as handsome as any young nobleman, and Gus said that “I looked, by Jingo, like a regular tip-top swell.”

In the meantime the following letter had been sent down to Hodge and Smithers:—­

   “RAM ALLEY, CORNHILL, LONDON:  July 1822.

   “DEAR SIRS,

* * * * *

   [This part being on private affairs relative to the cases of Dixon v. 
   Haggerstony, Snodgrass v.  Rubbidge and another, I am not permitted to
   extract.]

* * * * *

“Likewise we beg to hand you a few more prospectuses of the Independent West Diddlesex Fire and Life Insurance Company, of which we have the honour to be the solicitors in London.  We wrote to you last year, requesting you to accept the Slopperton and Somerset agency for the same, and have been expecting for some time back that either shares or assurances should be effected by you.

“The capital of the Company, as you know, is five millions sterling (say 5,000,000_l_.), and we are in a situation to offer more than the usual commission to our agents of the legal profession.  We shall be happy to give a premium of 6 per cent. for shares to the amount of 1,000_l_., 6.5 per cent. above a thousand, to be paid immediately upon the taking of the shares.

   “I am, dear Sirs, for self and partners,
   Yours most faithfully,
   SAMUEL JACKSON.”

This letter, as I have said, came into my hands some time afterwards.  I knew nothing of it in the year 1822, when, in my new suit of clothes, I went down to pass a week at the Rookery, Fulham, residence of John Brough, Esquire, M.P.

CHAPTER VII

HOW SAMUEL TITMARSH REACHED THE HIGHEST POINT OF PROSPERITY

If I had the pen of a George Robins, I might describe the Rookery properly:  suffice it, however, to say it is a very handsome country place; with handsome lawns sloping down to the river, handsome shrubberies and conservatories, fine stables, outhouses, kitchen-gardens, and everything belonging to a first-rate rus in urbe, as the great auctioneer called it when he hammered it down some years after.