“Any fool,” he opined, “could buy with money; but it required some cleverness to buy without money. If I had been one of that sort, afraid of this, and that, and ’tother, I should have stayed on servant to somebody all my life. Success is just like a woman—faint heart won’t win her; and see what I have done—just look at me.” This was the fashion in which he addressed Alick Dudley, or any other individual on whom he hoped the sight of his exalted position might produce a beneficial effect. From the way in which he talked of his successes, it was only fair to presume his achievements had astonished no one more than himself. Perpetually he seemed trying to lay his hand on his good fortune, in order to realise it; failing in this attempt, he desired to see his neighbour’s hand touch the glittering heap, so as to make sure it was no deception—no sham. All his life he had been used to making believe. In the days when he lodged at Hoxton, he was wont to entertain his landlady with accounts of the great people he knew, who were going to do something for him; and shabby, out at elbows, patchy about the feet, and much dinged as regarded his head-gear, he still, meeting former acquaintances in the street, would ignore Hoxton, and ask them, the first time they were out Clapham way, to give him a call. He had been a liar from the beginning, and even in prosperity lying forsook him not; but like as the wicked, of whom King David makes mention, were clothed with cursing, so falsehood was to Mr. Black as the garment which covered him, and as the girdle wherewith he was girded continually. His life had been a shifting scene of unfair dealing; of false pretences; of uncertain climbing; of incessant struggle either to retain, or to regain, a desirable position; and because his memory retained nothing but a confused recollection of excusing, inventing, distorting, misrepresenting, scheming, cheating, planning, the atmosphere at Berrie Down almost took away his breath by its rarity. To the advantage, however, of being associated with a man like Arthur Dudley—against whose honour and integrity even slander could not make an accusation—who really had broad acres and fair lands—something tangible in the way of property—Mr. Black was by no means blind. Society, he knew, had a foolish confidence in such individuals; and now, when, perhaps, for the first time in his life he was striving to make his fortune honestly and legitimately, he could not help feeling that the accession of such an ally gave him greater confidence even in himself.