That is, supposing him to be successful; but it has happened that in digging pits for others, men have fallen into their own graves. Whether this was to be the case with Jeremiah Pamflett remained to be proved. He was altogether so sharp a fellow, so extraordinarily astute, such a "dab at figures," as he had declared, so completely "up" to every move on the board, so thoroughly conversant with the game of spiders and flies, that men of the world would have backed him to come out triumphant from any scheme upon which, after mature consideration, he had resolved to put a great stake. Consideration the most mature, study the most profound, calculations the most careful and precise, had led Jeremiah to the conclusion that he had discovered a means of making a great and rapid fortune. Those who are about to be let into the secret, and who have not had favourable opportunities of studying human nature from a sufficiently comprehensive panorama, will perhaps be surprised at the vulgarity of Jeremiah's discovery; and more surprised, may be, because it is neither novel nor original. To lead intelligently up to the disclosure, it may be mentioned that some short time before Jeremiah Pamflett had conceived the ambitious idea of becoming Miser Farebrother's son-in-law, a business transaction introduced him to scenes altogether new to him. Of course it was a money-lending transaction, and the debtor, to whom in the first instance he had lent thirty pounds out of his own pocket, was a certain Captain Ablewhite. It may not have been his rightful name, but into this we will not too curiously inquire, nor into his antecedents; and yet he was undoubtedly well connected. He knew and mixed with a great number of "swells," and his name might occasionally be seen in some of the "society" papers; he dressed in most perfect taste, and was seldom seen without an expensive exotic in his button-hole; you would judge him from outward observance to be a man of good-breeding; he had had a sufficient education; his manners were easy, confident, smiling; he seemed to know everything and everybody--all of which did not prevent him from being chronically hard up. It may not have troubled him much, he was so accustomed to it; and although he met with many obstacles in his career of continual borrowing and seldom paying, there was never seen upon his face any but the pleasantest of smiling expressions. He was a good-looking man, with a handsome moustache and blue eyes, and he carried himself like a soldier; hence, maybe, his "captainship," though how captain, or captain of what, was never inquired into. Misery, it is said, makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows; so does such a career as Captain Ablewhite's. It was a career the successful steering of which required peculiar ingenuity, and the waters upon which it floated were not of the sweetest. One day Captain Ablewhite presented himself with his smiling face and his choice exotic at the office over