These leaders are
mere echoes of to-day's advertisement sheet, and bidders for
to-morrow's."
"The world gets worse every day, Skinner."
"It gets no better," replied Richard, philosophically.
"But, Richard, here is our county member, and ----, staid, sober men
both, and both have pledged their honor on the floor of the House of
Commons to the sound character of some of these companies."
"They have, sir; but they will never redeem the said honor, for they
are known to be bribed, and not obliquely, by those very companies."
(The price current of M. P. honor, in time of bubble, ought to be
added to the works of arithmetic.) "Those two Brutuses get 500 pounds
apiece per annum for touting those companies down at Stephen's. ----
goes cheaper and more oblique. He touts, in the same place, for a gas
company, and his house in the square flares from cellar to garret,
gratis."
"Good gracious! and he talked of the light of conscience in his very
last speech. But this cannot apply to all. There is the archbishop; he
can't have sold his name to that company."
"Who knows? He is over head and ears in debt."
"But the duke, _he_ can't have."
"Why not? He is over head and ears in debt. Princes deep in debt by
misconduct, and bishops deep in ditto by ditto, are half-honest, needy
men; and half-honest, needy men are all to be bought and sold like
hogs in Smithfield, especially in time of bubble."
"What is the world come to!"
"What it was a hundred years ago.
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