"Bentley returned to number one, Mortgage Row, had a rapid vision of his chop-fallen countenance in the large brass plate upon which was engraved 'Deeds, Bentley and Co.;' rushed to his apartment, exchanged his black stock for an easier neck-cloth, and, whistling louder than he had ever been known to do before, took four steps in every stride down stairs, and joined his partner, a keen, sarcastic, but sensible man, from whom I had the greater part of these particulars, at dinner. But, as every man has his evil, as well as his friendly genius, rumour has spread to the winds that poor Bentley's thoughts being unpleasantly occupied, he wished to drown them, and swallowing a more liberal potation than was his ordinary custom, of native spirit, diluted with warm water, and seasoned with lemon and sugar, experience confirmed the proverb of '_in vino veritas_,' the half-muttered sounds of 'rejected addresses,' and stimulated the curiosity of Mr. Jacob Deeds. The distressing confession distilled from Bentley's lips, and so entirely did he lose all prudent controul over his feelings, that the boy who passed to and fro with the dinner apparatus, heard sufficient of his misadventure to make a good foundation, and splicing on from his own invention as much as was requisite to complete the story, he published his master's disgrace with the diligence of a bell-man that evening. When Bentley went to court on the following day, he was attacked on all sides, and to come to the _moral_ of my tale, this _debut_ in _love affairs_ gave the bias which has influenced the life and character of my honest neighbour from seven and twenty to sixty years of age. Had _affection_ been blighted, I could not even _now_ laugh at his expense, but his pride alone was engaged. The prudential aphorisms which he had learned of vulgar parents, had established certain points as fixed principles in his mind, not requiring farther discussion. Amongst these, was the firm belief that no young woman could possibly refuse a tolerable match, and _partiality_ having, perhaps, represented the offer of his own hand as something _beyond_ the average of good luck in the case of Miss Sharp, it was too much for his philosophy to find such a flaw in a theory which might have otherwise lasted to the end of his days, and not only this vexation in the abstract, but the particular sting of furnishing the contradiction in his own person. He began with rage, and finding no balsam in his wrath, he turned on mankind, and revenged, by the poignancy of his satire against the whole species, this fancied wrong inflicted by a single individual. In a short time after, an advertisement appeared in the papers, setting forth the death of a person who possessed considerable property, and who dying intestate, and without any near relations, the next of kin were called upon to declare themselves. At the end of a suit which occupied four or five years, my friend's claim was substantiated, and