There life was
new, friendship was undisguised, my coat was not an object of scorn, my
exploits were fashion, my duns were inadmissible, and my very captors
were turned into my humble servants. There, too, my nature, always
social, had its full indulgence; for there I found, rather to my
surprise, nine-tenths of my most accomplished acquaintance. But the
enemy still made his way; and I had learned to yawn, in spite of
billiards and ball-playing, when _the_ Act let me loose into the great
world again. Good-luck, too, had prepared a surprise for my _debut_. I
had scarcely exhibited myself in the streets, when I discovered that
every man of my _set_ was grown utterly blind whenever I happened to
walk on the same side of the way, and that I might as well have been
buried a century. I was absurd enough to be indignant; for nothing can
be more childish than any delicacy when a man cannot bet on the rubber.
But one morning a knock came to my attic-door which startled me by its
professional vigour. An attorney entered. I had now nothing to fear, for
the man whom no one will trust cannot well be in debt; and for once I
faced an attorney without a palpitation.
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