Living in Stanley Crescent, which would once have seemed a flight too great for even his imagination to achieve, within a stone’s throw of Hyde Park, with his rooms upholstered in velvet and satin, with curtains such as the imagination of Mr. Peter Black had never previously conceived could be manufactured, with carpets such as the feet of Mr. Black had never before trodden upon, surrounded by mirrors and gilding, by pictures and statuettes, waited upon by silent human automatons, his wants almost anticipated, his orders obeyed to the letter, his commands remembered, his word law, the promoter’s fancy pourtrayed for him yet greater things to come. Even in the matter of personal gratification it would seem that there is such a thing necessary as education—the education of what to desire; and this instruction Mr. Black’s youth had lacked; consequently, as the sailor’s desires were for “an ocean of rum,” and then “as much tobacco as he could chew,” and then “more rum,” so Mr. Black’s ignorant soul craved only for more luxury, a larger house, and a still better situation; more rooms to be upholstered in a still more magnificent style; costlier pictures, older china, softer carpets; a larger number of servants, equipages in which to drive round the Park; and money, money, money with which to keep up the show, and maintain still grander appearances. A change that, from the retirement of Whitecross Street; from the shabby bed-room with use of sitting-room in Hoxton; from even more wretched lodgings into which he had been glad to creep at so much a night! In those weary days he envied Johnson driving the stout wife of his bosom out in the cart which, on week-days, delivered shoulders of mutton and sirloins of beef at the house of the said Johnson’s customers; he grudged the good fortune of every man he saw with a decent coat on his back. He would gladly have changed places with young Tomkins, who could afford apple tart and Stilton cheese after his steak in a quiet eating-house situate in Pope’s Head Alley. When a man, seated opposite to him in an omnibus, pulled out a handful of silver in order to look through it for a fourpenny or threepenny piece, Mr. Black felt that individual had wronged him. After all, it was natural enough. When the starved ragged little beggar who has stood with his nose flattened against the pastrycook’s window, sees Master Tommy come forth, crammed to repletion with tarts and cheesecakes, his pockets full of sweets, and his hands of suggestive paper parcels, do you think the dirty, hungry imp likes the over-fed child, and never grudges him the contents of every one of those tempting paper bags?