"I am trying my best," said the cosmopolitan, still calmly companionable. "A moment since, we talked of Pizarro, gold, and Peru; no doubt, now, you remember that when the Spaniard first entered Atahalpa's treasure-chamber, and saw such profusion of plate stacked up, right and left, with the wantonness of old barrels in a brewer's yard, the needy fellow felt a twinge of misgiving, of want of confidence, as to the genuineness of an opulence so profuse. He went about rapping the shining vases with his knuckles. But it was all gold, pure gold, good gold, sterling gold, which how cheerfully would have been stamped such at Goldsmiths' Hall. And just so those needy minds, which, through their own insincerity, having no confidence in mankind, doubt lest the liberal geniality of this age be spurious. They are small Pizarros in their way--by the very princeliness of men's geniality stunned into distrust of it." "Far be such distrust from you and me, my genial friend," cried the other fervently; "fill up, fill up!" "Well, this all along seems a division of labor," smiled the cosmopolitan. "I do about all the drinking, and you do about all--the genial. But yours is a nature competent to do that to a large population. And now, my friend," with a peculiarly grave air, evidently foreshadowing something not unimportant, and very likely of close personal interest; "wine, you know, opens the heart, and----" "Opens it!" with exultation, "it thaws it right out. Every heart is ice-bound till wine melt it, and reveal the tender grass and sweet herbage budding below, with every dear secret, hidden before like a dropped jewel in a snow-bank, lying there unsuspected through winter till spring." "And just in that way, my dear Charlie, is one of my little secrets now to be shown forth." "Ah!" eagerly moving round his chair, "what is it?" "Be not so impetuous, my dear Charlie. Let me explain. You see, naturally, I am a man not overgifted with assurance; in general, I am, if anything, diffidently reserved; so, if I shall presently seem otherwise, the reason is, that you, by the geniality you have evinced in all your talk, and especially the noble way in which, while affirming your good opinion of men, you intimated that you never could prove false to any man, but most by your indignation at a particularly illiberal passage in Polonius' advice--in short, in short," with extreme embarrassment, "how shall I express what I mean, unless I add that by your whole character you impel me to throw myself upon your nobleness; in one word, put confidence in you, a generous confidence?" "I see, I see," with heightened interest, "something of moment you wish to confide. Now, what is it, Frank? Love affair?" "No, not that." "What, then, my _dear_ Frank? Speak--depend upon me to the last. Out with it." "Out it shall come, then," said the cosmopolitan. "I am in want, urgent want, of money." CHAPTER XXXI. A METAMORPHOSIS MORE SURPRISING THAN ANY IN OVID.