I had this history of Jacob Vandervermin from a Chinaman. He repeated it to me with the eloquence and fervour of a believer. The Chinamen—at least the sort that live at Singapore—believe that when the tiger kills its first man, his ghost becomes its very slave; bound, ordered by fate to be a sort of jackal to the tiger; compelled by destiny to find the beast its dinners, even among his kith and kin. Hence, a tiger having carried off one of a family, not one of the survivors is from that moment safe. My Chinaman—he passed for a very learned fellow among his tribe—had the most intimate knowledge of the Vandervermin tragedy, which, after his own lofty fashion—painting his story as though he was painting his native porcelain—he related to me. I shall give it you in plain, cold English; for, my good friends all, be it known to you, I scorn the flourish of a traveller. At the age of eighteen Jacob Vandervermin—having been knocked from uncle to uncle, the poor, passive family shuttlecock—fell at length into the counting-house of his richest, and oldest uncle, Peter. For two years did Jacob eat the bread of dependence; for with that bitter word was his bread always buttered—when he awakened the inextinguishable ire of his rich and orderly relative. Jacob had been guilty of a gross wickedness; in fact, of a crime, in the eyes of Peter Vandervermin, of the deepest dye. He had, in a moment of culpable neglect, let fall a large, unsightly blot of ink upon his uncle’s ledger. To the mind of Peter Vandervermin, his graceless nephew had thrown an indelible stain upon the white reputation of the family; at least Peter so avenged the fault, for without a word he seized a ruler that lay upon the desk, and with it smote the skull of the blotting offender. Jacob uttered no syllable; but instantly closing the ledger, and raising it with both his hands, he brought down the book of figures with such precise vehemence upon the head of his uncle, that the principal of the house of Vandervermin & Co. lay stunned and prostrate on the floor of his own temple—that is, of his own counting-house. Now Jacob was not a man to give unnecessary trouble. He knew that if he remained it would only cause his uncle the pain and the perplexity of thrusting him from the house, and therefore, with scarcely a penny in his purse, did Jacob don his hat and cross his uncle’s threshold.