The last score of centuries have taught us many things; amongst others, to go down hill with a certain caution and timidity, if not with sobriety. We never hear now of those great disasters to which the very vastness of their proportions lent a false grandeur; where a colossal fortune foundered suddenly, leaving on the world's surface a vortex of turbulence and terror, such as surrounds the spot where a three-decker has gone down. The Regent and his _roués_ were wild in their generation, but they never quite attained the antique magnificence of recklessness. The expenses of a contested county election fifty years back, would have shown poorly by the Ædile's balance-sheet, A. C. 65, when Cæsar laughed to see his last _sestertium_ vanish in the brilliancy of the Circensian Games. What modern general would carry £20,000 of debt as lightly as he did half-a-million, when he went out to battle with the Lusitanian? If we even hear nowadays of a like liability, it is probably in connexion with a great commercial "smash," involving curious disclosures as to the capabilities of stamped paper, and the extent of public credulity; but the interest of such rarely spreads west of Temple-bar. Truth to say--however moving the tale may be to the unfortunates ruined by the delinquent, there is little romance to be extracted out of mercantile atrocities. Nevertheless, if you only give him time, and don't hurry him beyond his stride, a dwarf will "go to the dogs" just as easily and surely as a giant. After our _mesquine_ fashion, that journey is performed so constantly, that only some peculiarities in Alan's case make it worth noting at all.