"_Dashall_, (_reads_).--'Dear Dashall, all's up. Transfer swears if you don't settle your beer account in a week, he'll blackboard you. Affectionate enquiries are making after you at Lloyd's; and to crown all, hops were so lively last market, that there is already a loss of thousands on that scheme. Nothing can save you but the ready. Yours, "'TIM TICK. "'N.B.--Green peas were yesterday sold at Leadenhall market at ninepence a-peck, so your bet of three thousand pounds on that event is lost.'--So! Lurched every way; stocks, insurance, hops, hazard, and green peas, all over the left shoulder; and then, like a flat, I must get pigeoned at Faro by ladies of quality, for the swagger of saying, 'The Duchess and I were curst jolly last night.' But confusion to despair! I'm no flincher. If I can but humbug Allspice out of a few thousands, and marry his daughter, I shall cut a gay figure, and make a splash yet. "_Waiter_, (_without._)--A room for Lady Sorrel. "_Dashall._--What the devil brings her here? Old and ugly as she is, I'll take decent odds that 'tis an intrigue. [_Enter Lady Sorrel._ "_Lady Sorrel._--Inform my cousin Caustic I'm here. Ah, Dashall! I suppose the warm weather has driven you from town? "_Dashall._--True, London was certainly too hot for me, but how could your ladyship leave the fascination of play? "_Lady Sorrel._--Hush! that's not my rural character. I always assimilate. The fact is, Dick, I have here a strange, plain-spoken, worthy, and wealthy relation; he gives me considerable sums to distribute in London to the needy, which I lose in play to people of fashion; and you'll allow that is giving them to the needy, and fulfilling the worthy donor's intentions.--Ha! ha! "_Dashall._--Then you are not here because your favourite, young Tangent, is arrived?--Eh? "_Lady Sorrel._--What, Dick, have you found out my attachment there? Well, I confess it; and if my regard be not, I'll take care my revenge shall be, gratified; and 'tis a great consolation that one is nearly as sweet as the other." And when the above-named cousin of Lady Sorrel has a palaver with the same merchant Dashall, he is instructed in the inner secrets of the commercial world after the following guise:-- "_Dashall._--Capital!--an old bugbear--never thought of now. No! paper, discount, does it all. "_Caustic._--Paper! "_Dashall._--Ay. Suppose I owe a tradesman--my tailor, for instance--two thousand pounds-- "_Caustic._--A merchant owe his tailor two thousand pounds!--Mercy on me!