MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM

MORTOMLEY'S ESTATE.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCES MR. ASHERILL TO THE READER.

During the course of the last ten or at most fifteen years, a new class of building has, mushroom like, sprung up in the Metropolis, which cannot perhaps better be described in a sentence than as

"The City of London Offices" (Limited).

True, none of the "Houses," "Chambers," "Halls," "Buildings" that swell the ranks of this new army of offices, are so far as I know called by the above name, but they are all situated within the precincts of the City; they have been promoted by City men, they all belong to Limited Companies or to the liquidators of those Companies, and they all resemble each other more or less—more indeed rather than less.

They are to be met with in various lanes, alleys, streets, and courts. So far as a casual observer can see, they are principally remarkable for an utter absence of comfort. They possess longer corridors, smaller rooms, steeper and more unpromising stone staircases than any other class of building, Newgate not excepted, east of Temple Bar.

So far as the mind can grasp, they are tenanted by a more wonderful race of men than Captain Cook discovered in the South Sea Islands, or Darwin conceived could ever have been eliminated from monkeys.

The windows are noticeable for having no front light, the edifices themselves are curious for the simple reason that they have been apparently built without the usual preliminaries of either architect or plan, while the men who during business hours inhabit the offices afford subject for the wildest speculation.

They have as a rule come from no one knows where; they live no one, save their victims, knows how; their business, though stated with sufficient distinctness on the walls of the halls and corridors, and the glass and panels of the doors, is a sealed mystery to every one but themselves and the poor wretches who in those dreary offices are stripped of every valuable they possess, every rag of social consideration, every vestige of self-respect, and turned out naked as they came into the world to meet the world's opprobrium and that which is tenfold harder to bear—the world's pity, and to try to make their way once again through a world it is unhappily necessary for them to pass through. And yet the men who are able to set up in business in the trade or profession (which?) that I have indicated, like the wicked, flourish as green bay trees; they gather riches, they purchase houses and inhabit them, they build barns and fill them, they lay by much treasure, they hug themselves on their balances, their position, the deference shown fearfully and servilely by those who are poorer than themselves, the familiarity of those who are richer,—never recking of that possible hour when poverty shall come upon them like an armed man, and when a hand more terrible than that of death itself shall be laid upon their shoulders and a voice whisper in their ear, "Thou fool, this night thy substance is required of thee."

As for their souls, they never think of them either. Money is palpable, spirit impalpable.

If in their blindness they ignore the probability of money making unto itself wings—even money coined as theirs has been out of the blood drawn from men's hearts, the anguished tears of women, the broken hopes of youth, and the disgrace heaped upon old age—it is not in the slightest degree likely they trouble themselves concerning the possible vagaries of their spirits.

Death, if the idea of dying present itself, is looked at either as an end of happiness or a cessation from anxiety.

It is bankruptcy in both cases. It ends a successful career; it smooths all difficulties in the path of those whose experiments have proved abortive, whose attempts have resulted in failure; and, as the earth-worm is no respecter of persons, it cuts short the career of worldly consideration, it renders men's good opinion valueless, it places the best-esteemed City magnate in a position where even a plum of money will not enable him to pass muster in a more creditable manner than the Bethnal Green pauper who has nothing to leave his family except his bones.

Death is bankruptcy. Can I say more in its disfavour when writing of a class who hold personal bankruptcy—their own, I mean—a calamity too great to contemplate; who estimate a man's standing, for here and hereafter, by the amount he has managed to rake and scrape together; and who live by swooping down upon his possessions, and selling the house which shelters him, the bed he lies on, the toys