One might have taken Henry Carew for a sailor, but he was very unlike the typical solicitor. He was a big, hearty man of thirty-five, with all a sailor's bluff manner and generous ways. His friends called him Honest Hal, and said that he was one of the best fellows that ever lived. We have it on the authority of that immortal adventuress, Becky Sharp, that it is easy to be virtuous on five thousand a year. Had Mr. Carew enjoyed such an income, he would most probably have lived a blameless life and have acquired an estimable reputation; for he had no instinctive liking for crime; on the contrary, he loathed it. But one slight moral flaw in a man's nature--so slight that his best friends smile tolerantly at it--may, by force of circumstance, lead ultimately to his complete moral ruin. It is an old story, and has been the text of many a sermon. The trifling fault is often the germ of terrible crimes. Carew's fault was one that is always easily condoned, so nearly akin is it to a virtue; these respectably connected vices are ever the most dangerous, like well-born swindlers. Carew was a spendthrift. He was ostentatiously extravagant in many directions. He owned a smart schooner, which he navigated himself, being an excellent sailor, and the quantities of champagne consumed by his friends on board this vessel were prodigious. When his steady old partner died, Carew began to neglect the business for his pleasures. Soon his income was insufficient to meet his expenses. Speculation on the Stock Exchange seemed to him to be a quicker road to fortune than a slow-going profession. So this man, morally weak though physically brave, not having the courage to curtail his extravagances, hurried blindly to his destruction. He gambled and lost all his own property; for ill-luck ever pursued him. Even then it was not too late to redeem his position. But he was too great a coward to look his difficulties in the face; therefore, having the temptation to commit so terribly easy a crime ever before him in his office, he began--first, timidly, to a small extent; then wildly, in panic, in order to retrieve his losses--to speculate with the moneys entrusted to him by his clients. He pawned their securities; he forged their names; he plunged ever deeper into crime--and all in vain. When it was too late, he swore to himself, in the torments of his remorse, that if he could but once win back sufficient to replace the sums he had stolen, he would cut down all his expenses, forswear gambling and dishonesty, and stick to his profession. At last it came to this. He sold his yacht and everything else he possessed of value. He realised what remained of the securities under his charge, and then placed the entire sum as cover on a certain stock, the price of which, he was told, was certain to rise. It was the gambler's last despairing throw of the dice. The stock suddenly fell; settling day arrived, and his cover was swept away--he had lost all!