With but faint hopes of success, Mrs. Jericho seeks her husband in his study. In a long colloquy, she urges the importance of her daughters' appearance at this "grand party," and the necessity for an advance to enable them to do so properly. Mr. Jericho turns a deaf ear to her appeal, till suddenly a wonderful change comes over him.
"Quite a new look of satisfaction gleamed from his eyes, and his mouth had such a strange smile of compliance! What could ail him?"
The charm was working, the marvellous change was in operation. Mrs. Jericho fears for her husband's sanity. "'He doesn't look mad,' thought Mrs. Jericho, a little anxious.
"'I feel as if I had got new blood, new flesh, new bones, new brain! Wonderful!' Jericho trod up and down the room and snapt his fingers. 'Something's going to happen,' said he."
And something did indeed happen. The transformation was complete; the hard heart had given place to illimitable money.
"'You will let me have the money?' repeated Mrs. Jericho.
"Jericho answered not a word, but withdrew his hand from his breast. Between his finger and his thumb he held in silver purity a virgin Bank of England note for a hundred pounds. Mrs. Jericho ran delightedly off with the money.
"And Jericho sat with his heart beating faster. Again he placed his hand to his breast, again drew forth another bank-note. He jumped to his feet, tore away his dress, and, running to a mirror, saw therein reflected, not human flesh, but over the region of the heart a loose skin of bank-paper, veined with marks of ink. He touched it, and still in his hand lay another note. His thoughtless wish had been wrought into reality. Solomon Jericho was in very truth a Man made of Money."
The fête at Jogtrot Hall was a great success. The guests were many, and some of them distinguished. The Honourable Mr. Candytuft, Colonel Bones, Commissioner Thrush, and Dr. Mizzlemist, of Doctors' Commons, must be noted, as they have to be dealt with pictorially by Leech hereafter. After a variety of entertainments, some twenty or thirty hungry guests graced a table under a long, wide tent, on which "there were the most delicious proofs of the earth's goodness, with every kitchen mystery." The host, Mr. Carraway, took the head of the table; Mr. Jericho, "dignified and taciturn, graced the board." The orator on the occasion was Dr. Mizzlemist, who had been seized with a passion to drink everybody's health. For the third time he rose to give "the health of Solomon Jericho, Esquire, an honour to his country."