It will be thought surprising how our hero, with such roving and unsteady habits, could transact business as the head of a mercantile house. But in South America, business is not conducted in the same systematic way that it is in London or Liverpool; and probably more hides or bullocks, gin or ginghams, are bought and sold at the dinner or billiard table than at the desk or exchange. For such irregular kind of trade, Tom was peculiarly adapted. His was not the character to plod at a desk over intricate speculations, nor was it necessary in a trade confined within narrow compass and certain seasons. Trade would sometimes be brisk, vessels would require to be loaded and discharged; then Tom would write night and day, with desperate energy, and then, as if he had earned a holiday, he would idle away for weeks. What was the use of clerks if not to write? or, according to an old proverb, what is the use of keeping a dog, and barking yourself? Tom Thorne, when sent out to South America, in the first instance, came under great advantages. He was the son of the head of one of the richest firms in Europe, and with an ill-judged liberality was allowed lots of pocket-money; and more consideration was paid to him than to other clerks by the managers of the house in Buenos Ayres. Thus he had both more time and money to spend than other “young men” with more limited prospects. Tom was not one to throw away these advantages; and so his horse was the swiftest, his coat the tippiest, his cigar the longest, his gloves were ever the whitest, and his bouquet the richest of all the riding, smoking, flower-giving youths of Buenos Ayres; and it may be conceived, that with all “these appliances, and means to boot,” he was more an adept in the ways of gallantry than scriveny. In the course of time Mr Thorne, in spite of all his failings, arrived at the dignity of representative in Buenos Ayres of the rich firm of Thorne, Flower, & Co. Once established as his own master, Tom’s natural levity of character was not long of displaying itself, pleasure was his business, and business his pastime. The lute or the piano (he was a splendid musician) occupied him more than the pen; he was more in the camp or in the streets, than in his house--and more in other people’s houses than his own. And yet with all this, his business went on most swimmingly--he was an indulgent master, paid his clerks well, and fed them like princes: this they requited by paying more attention to his business than he did himself, and thus Tom, almost in spite of himself, was, as we have formerly said, one of the richest merchants in the city.