miserable mortals never knew to what they were coming; and the most notable feature in their attitude was the wild and almost tearful surprise with which they regarded the conduct of their friends.  The pictures of these forlorn wastrels people a certain corner of the mind, and one can make the ragged brigade start out in lines of deadly and lurid fire at a moment’s warning, until there is a whole Inferno before one.  But I shall speak no more at present of the degraded ones; I wish to gain a thought of pity for those who are blameless; and I want to stir up the blameless ones, who are generally ignorant creatures, so that they may exercise a little of the wisdom of the serpent in time.  Be it remembered that, although the ruined and blameless man is not subjected to such moral scorn as falls to the lot of the wastrel, the practical consequences of being down are much the same for him as for the victim of sloth or sin.  He feels the pinch of physical misery, and, however lofty his spirit may be, it can never be lofty enough to relieve the gnawing pains of bodily privation.  Moreover, he will meet with persecution just as if he were a villain or a cheat, and that too from men who know that he is honest.  The hard lawyer will pursue him as a stoat pursues a hare; and, if he asks for time or mercy, the iron answer will be, “We have nothing to do with your private affairs; business is business, and our client’s interests must not suffer merely because you are a well-meaning man.”  Even our dear Walter Scott, the soul of honour, one of the purest and brightest of all the spirits that make our joy, the gallant struggler—­even that delight of the world was hounded to death by a firm of bill-discounters at the very time when he was breaking his gallant heart in the effort to retrieve disaster.  No!  The world is pitiful so far as its kindest hearts are concerned, but the army of commonplace people are all pitiless.  See what follows when a man goes “down.”  Suppose that he invests in bank shares.  The directors are all men of substance, and most of them are even lights of religion; the leading spirit attends the same church as our investor, and he is a light of sanctity—­so pure of heart is he, that he will not so much as look at Monday’s newspapers, because their production entailed Sabbath labour.  Indeed, one wonders how such a man could bring himself to eat or sleep on Sunday, because his food must be carried up for him, and, I presume, his bed must be made.  All the directors are free in their gifts to churches and chapels—­for that is part of a wise director’s policy—­and all of them live sumptuously.  But surely our investor should guess that all this lavish expenditure must come out of somebody’s pocket; and surely he has skill enough to analyse a balance-sheet!  The good soul goes on trusting, until one fine morning he wakes up and finds that his means of subsistence are gone.  Then comes the bitter ordeal; his friends are grieved, the public are enraged, the sanctified men go to gaol, and the