The man of money ascended to his garret and awaited the Jews' offer, which was promised for the evening. He was alone, "evening closed in, and the moon rose and looked reproachfully at the miser." The garret door opened, and Plutus appeared. "'Well, has it come?' cried the master. "'Here it is,' answered the servant, as he laid a letter upon the table. "'Well, now for their conscience!' exclaimed the man of money." Light was required; there was a candle upon the table, and paper prepared to light it. "Most precious paper--the heart's flesh and blood of the man of money! For the devilish serving-man had folded a note (how obtained can it matter?)--a note peeled from the breast of his master, a piece of money, a part of the damned Jericho sympathizing with him. "The man of money took the paper--the devil, with his ear upturned, crept closer to the door--and thrust it amidst the dying coals. A moment, and the garret is rent as with a lightning flash. "Yelling, and all on fire, the man of money falls prostrate with hell in his face. Then his lips move, but not a sound is heard. And the fire communicated by the sympathy of the living note--the flesh of his flesh--like a snake of flame glides up his limbs, devouring them. And so he is consumed: a minute, and the man of money is a thin black paper ash. Now the night wind stirs it, and now a sudden breeze carries the cinereous corpse away, fluttering it to dust impalpable." CHAPTER XI. ALBERT SMITH AND LEECH. In July, 1851, a new work appeared, under the name and title of the _Month_: "a View of Passing Subjects and Manners, Home and Foreign, Social and General, by Albert Smith and John Leech." The publication was a serial one--monthly, in fact; and as it contained many amusing skits by Albert Smith, and much of Leech's best work, notice of it is incumbent upon a writer of Leech's life. Eighteen fifty-one, as everybody knows, was the year of the Great Crystal Palace Exhibition in Hyde Park. I well remember visiting the huge glass building in February, 1851, in company with Dickens and Sir Joseph Paxton. Dickens was wrapped in furs, and we shivered through the place, which was only partially roofed; and seemed altogether so far from completion as to cause great doubts in our minds of the possibility of its being ready for its contents by the first of May. I put the question to Paxton, and his reply was: "I _think_ it will; but, mind, I don't _say_ it will." Paxton's thought was justified; for the Exhibition was opened by the Queen in great state at the date fixed, though many of its intended exhibits were still to come.