visiting the City he found things so prosperous, but withal so totally changed, that the old gentleman was content to jog down to Bullion Lane about three times a month until his death, which was not long in overtaking him. Prosperous and changed! Yes; no doubt about that. Up that staircase, hitherto untrodden save by merchants'-clerks leaving bills for acceptance or notices of bills due; by stags with sham prospectuses of never-to-be-brought-out companies; or by third-rate City solicitors giving the quasi-respectability of their names to impotent semi-swindles, which, though they would never see the light, yet afforded the means for creating an indisputable and meaty bill of costs;--up that staircase now came heavy magnates of the City, directors of the Bank of England, with short ill-made Oxford-mixture trousers, and puckered coats, and alpaca umbrellas; or natty stockbrokers, most of them a trifle horsy in garb, all with undeniable linen, and good though large jewelry, carefully-cultivated whiskers, and glossy boots. In the little waiting-room might be found an Irish member of Parliament; the managing director of a great steam-shipping company; a West-end dandy, with a letter of introduction from some club acquaintance with a handle to his name, who idiotically imagined that that handle would serve as a lever to raise money out of Robert Streightley; a lawyer or two; and, occasionally the bronzed captain of a steamer arrived with news from the Pacific; or some burnt and bearded engineer fresh from the inspection of a silver mine in Central America. A long purgatory, for the most part, did these gentlemen spend in the little waiting-room, or in the clerk's room beyond it, where they were exposed to the sharp fusillade of Mr. Fowler's eyes and the keen glances of the two young men who assisted him. The only people who were shown by the messenger at once into Mr. Streightley's presence were the City editors of the various newspapers, and a very prettily-appointed young gentleman, wise withal beyond his years, who occasionally drove down to Bullion Lane from Downing Street in a hansom cab, and who was private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.