Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England Volume 1, Chapter I. DUPLEX STREET. "Some people are such fools!" said Richard Pellet; and, if public judgment was right, he knew what a fool was as well as any man in the great city of London. He was a big man was Richard Pellet, Esq., C.C., shipper, of Austin Friars, and known among city men as "the six-hundred-pounder;" and he knew a fool when he saw one. But whether at his office in the city, or down at his place at Norwood,--"his little place at Norwood," where he had "a morsel of garden" and "a bit of glass," and grew pine and melon, peach and grape, and had a fat butler in black, and a staff of servants in drab, trimmed with yellow coach-lace,--no matter where Richard Pellet might be, he could always see in his mind's eye the greatest fool that ever breathed--the man whom he was always mentally abusing--to wit, his brother Jared. But Jared Pellet always was a fool--so his brother said; and he was continually filling the foolish cup of his iniquitous folly fuller and more full. He was a fool to be tyrannised over by his brother when a boy, and to take all the punishment that should have fallen to Richard's share; he was a fool to marry Lizzie Willis, who had not a penny, when Richard would have given his ears to stand in his shoes; he was a fool for being happy--loved and loving; he was a fool to have such a large family; he was a fool for being a poor struggling man, while his brother was so rich; in short, taking Richard Pellet's opinion--which must have been correct, seeing how wealthy, and stout, and clean shaven, and respected he was--there was not a bigger fool upon the face of the earth! Just as if it was likely that a man could get a living in Clerkenwell by mending musical instruments in so unmusical a place; doctoring consumptive harmoniums; strengthening short-winded concertinas; re-buffing a set of hammers, or tuning pianos and putting in new strings at one shilling each. However, living or no living, Jared Pellet rented a house in Duplex Street, Clerkenwell; and there was a brass plate on the door, one which Patty Pellet brightened to such an extent that when the sun did shine in Duplex Street--which was not often--it would kiss the bright metal and then shoot off at various angles to dart into darksome spots where, directly, he seldom or never shone.