Page:The German Novelists (Volume 3).djvu/30

20 presented with a fine joint of roast beef, with a flask of Spanish wine:—the people drank to the health and long life of old Melchier’sMelchior’s [sic] son, and young Mr. Francis became the hero of the day.

In this round of continual pleasure, no wonder he never thought of balancing his accounts—then the favourite “Pocket Companion,” the vade mecum of our old merchants, but since unfortunately gone too much out of fashion. Hence the evident tendency of the modern scale of calculations towards utter bankruptcy and heavy losses, as if drawn by magnetic influence. Still the old merchant’s coffers had been so well stocked, as to give his son no sort of uneasiness; hitherto his difficulty was rather how to dispose of his annual income. Open house, well furnished tables, and throngs of parasites, loungers, gamblers, and id genus omnes, left our hero small time for reflection; one kind of pleasure followed another; his friends took care to provide a succession of extravagancies lest he should pause, and think, and snatch the luscious prey from their grasp.

Suddenly the source of such prosperity ceased to flow; Francis found he had drained his father’s money-bags of their inexhaustible stores. He or-