“Why not?  He is over head and ears in debt.  Princes deep in debt by misconduct, and bishops deep in ditto by ditto, are half-honest, needy men; and half-honest, needy men are all to be bought and sold like hogs in Smithfield, especially in time of bubble.”

“What is the world come to!”

“What it was a hundred years ago.”

“I have got one pill left for him, Skinner.  Here is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a man whose name stands for caution, has pronounced a panegyric on our situation.  Here are his words quoted in this leader; now listen:  ’We may safely venture to contemplate with instructive admiration the harmony of its proportions and the solidity of its basis.’  What do you say to that?”

“I say it is one man’s opinion versus the experience of a century.  Besides, that is a quotation, and may be a fraudulent one.”

“No, no.  The speech was only delivered last Wednesday:  we will refer to it.  Mum! mum!  Ah, here it is.  ’The Chancellor of the Exchequer rose and—­’ mum! mum! ah—­’I am of—­o-pinion that—­if, upon a fair review of our situation, there shall appear to be nothing hollow in its foundation, artificial in its superstructure, or flimsy in its general results, we may safely venture to contemplate with instructive admiration the harmony of its proportions and the solidity of its basis.’”

“Ha! ha! ha!  I quite agree with cautious Bobby.  If it is not hollow, it may be solid; if it is not a gigantic paper balloon, it may be a very fine globe, and vice versa, which vice versa he in his heart suspects to be the truth.  You see, sir, the mangled quotation was a swindle, like the flimsy superstructures it was intended to prop.  The genuine paragraph is a fair sample of Robinson, and of the art of withholding opinion by means of expression.  But as quoted, by a fraudulent suppression of one half, the unbalanced half is palmed off as a whole, and an indecision perverted into a decision.  I might just as fairly cite him as describing our situation to be ’hollow in its basis, artificial in its superstructure, flimsy in its general result.’  Since you value names, I will cite you one man that has commented on the situation; not, like Mr. Robinson, by misty sentences, each neutralizing the other, but by consistent acts:  a man, gentlemen, whose operations have always been numerous and courageous in less prosperous times, yet now he is out of everything but a single insurance company.”

“Who is the gentleman?”

“It is not a gentleman; it is a blackguard,” said the exact youth.

“You excite my curiosity.  Who is the capitalist, then, that stands aloof?”

“Nathan Meyer Rothschild.”

“The devil.”

Old Skinner started sitting.  “Rothschild hanging back.  Oh, master, for Heavens sake don’t let us try to be wiser than those devils of Jews.  Mr. Richard, I bore up pretty well against your book-learning, but now you’ve hit me with a thunderbolt.  Let us get in gold, and keep as snug as mice, and not lend one of them a farthing to save them from the gallows.  Those Jews smell farther than a Christian can see.  Don’t let’s have any more 1793’s, sir, for Heaven’s sake.  Listen to Mr. Richard; he has been abroad, and come back with a head.”