Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

As I commenced this chapter by quoting the somewhat ungenerous strictures of Thackeray on his unhappy brethren, it will be a fitting termination to close with an incident of impecuniosity connected with his life, which circumstance, by the way, was caused by no fault of his. How could it have been? He was so terribly correct and proper! However, when sojourning on one occasion in France, he had the misfortune to be robbed of his purse, and immediately wrote off to a relative for fresh supplies. In the meantime he borrowed a ten-pound note, which he spent in little more than a week, thinking he should by that time be in possession of a remittance from his aunt. But no remittance came. He then humorously describes the horrors that arose in his mind as day after day passed on and there was no response from England. His intense desire for a frothy pot of beer, ungratified of course from his impecunious state, his alarm lest the landlord should present his bill, and his forebodings when passing a prison-house, with his elation of spirits when the long-delayed cheque at length arrived, are presented with all the charm of comedy and the interest of romance, and playfully alluded to in these four lines:—