Mr. Inchling did not deny that grand mangers of golden oats were still somehow constantly allotted to him.  His wife believed in Victor, and deemed the loss of the balancing Pennergate a gain.  Since that lamentable loss, Mr. Inchling, under the irony of circumstances the Tory of Commerce, had trotted and gallopped whither driven, racing like mad against his will and the rival nations now in the field to force the pace; a name for enterprise; the close commercial connection of a man who speculated—­who, to put it plainly, lived on his wits; hurried onward and onward; always doubting, munching, grumbling at satisfaction, in perplexity of the gratitude which is apprehensive of black Nemesis at a turn of the road,—­to confound so wild a whip as Victor Radnor.  He had never forgiven the youth’s venture in India of an enormous purchase of Cotton many years back, and which he had repudiated, though not his share of the hundreds of thousands realized before the refusal to ratify the bargain had come to Victor.  Mr. Inchling dated his first indigestion from that disquieting period.  He assented to the praise of Victor’s genius, admitting benefits; his heart refused to pardon, and consequently his head wholly to trust, the man who robbed him of his quondam comfortable feeling of security.  And if you will imagine the sprite of the aggregate English Taxpayer personifying Steam as the malignant who has despoiled him of the blessed Safety-Assurance he once had from his God Neptune against invaders, you will comprehend the state of Mr. Inchling’s mind in regard to his terrific and bountiful, but very disturbing partner.

He thanked heaven to his wife often, that he had nothing to do with North American or South American mines and pastures or with South Africa and, gold and diamonds:  and a wife must sometimes listen, mastering her inward comparisons.  Dr. Schlesien had met and meditated on this example of the island energy.  Mr. Inchling was not permitted by his wife to be much the guest of the Radnor household, because of the frequent meeting there with Colney Durance; Colney’s humour for satire being instantly in bristle at sight of his representative of English City merchants:  ‘over whom,’ as he wrote of the venerable body, ’the disciplined and instructed Germans not deviously march; whom acute and adventurous Americans, with half a cock of the eye in passing, compassionately outstrip.’  He and Dr. Schlesien agreed upon Mr. Inchling.  Meantime the latter gentleman did his part at the tables of the wealthier City Companies, and retained his appearance of health; he was beginning to think, upon a calculation of the increased treasures of those Companies and the country, that we, the Taxpayer, ought not to leave it altogether to Providence to defend them; notwithstanding the watchful care of us hitherto shown by our briny Providence, to save us from anxiety and expense.  But there are, he said, ‘difficulties’; and the very word could stop him, as commonly when our difficulty lies in the exercise of thinking.