The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-19 00:00:00

dant-in' .as a rainbow or a soap-bubble: In the
one case Bullions have gone on intermarrying..with
Ingots for generations, so that even the substantial
mansion at Dulwich, which belongs to the head of
the house, is not capable of receiving all the members
at once. In the other case, Mr. Mark Lane began as
an office boy, and began his career by anticipating
the charwoman in the sweepings of the office.
Bullion-Ingot does not parade his wealth ;
he is too much accustomed to it to do
that, and were it not for his occasional pity bestowed
on his friend's widow, who was left with only a
miserable pittance of £4,000 a year, and the daugh-
ters with only £15,000 apiece, there would be little
room to accuse him of ostentation. Mark Lane is
quite another sort of man. He has, by making
himself . acquainted with secrets that were not
intended for his knowledge, forced himself as a
partner upon some old-fashioned. City man in the
Levant trade—lscarides and Co.—supposed to be
one of the most substantial houses in the world, and
forced him into a speculation so;huge and daring that
though it turned out successful and brought an
enormous fortune to the pair, the elder partner's
hair was whitened by the anxiety that consumed him
while the affair was in progress. Bullion-Ingots
loves to walk on the old highways, and his office,
though capacious, is dingy. The firm of Iscarides
and Mark Lane builds itself one palace in
the City for business, and two others in N orwcod
and Sydenham for recreation. The Bullion-Ingots,
by keeping to their own set, always make suitable
marriages, and are never ashamed of the partners of
their joys and sorrows. Mark Lane, when he was
struggling to make good his first step in the world,
married a woman with a dowry that seemed a fortune
then, but which is a bagatelle now so small that it
will not compensate for the way in which she mur-
ders the Queen's English as she presides at her
husband's table, and reveals her and his
plebeian origin to their patrician guests.
Lane thinks of divorce, but her conduct
is irreproachable: of separation, but her temper
is imperturbable. He cannot get rid of her ;
he is compelled to produce her. The Bullion-Ingotg
go on steadily enough to the end of the chapter, and
never give rise to any remarks except by the large-
ness of their subscriptions to a Kamschatka. famine
or Patagonia earthquake fund—subscriptions which
less opulent persons ill-naturedly say are advertise-
ments. It is otherwise with Mark Lane. He was
just concerting the transfer of the business
of Iscarides and Lane to a company (limited), and
expectant gudgeons were gaping for the shares when
another great house that had got the start of him in
that way put up its shutters. A whole trillh of
affiliated firms did the like. Iscarides and Lane
had been just a month or two behind the fair.
Instead of the proposed prospectus, out came a cir-
cular to creditors deploring an immense lock-up of
capital, and a temporary inability to meet engage-
ments, intimating books in the hands of Auditt,
Balance, and Co. ; promising a speedy payment of
20s. in the pound, with flrterest at 5 per cent. !
Three years have elapsed since then, and the creditors
have received a first and final dividend of 30., and
Mr. Mark Lane is musing on the vicissitudes of a
merchant's life in his commodious chateau on the
banks of the Loire, comforted by the presence of his
French cook and the absence of his wife.