Laying down the pen, and sinking back in my chair, here, perhaps, I fall into a five minutes' reverie, and think of one, two, three, half a dozen cases in which I have been content to accept that sham promissory coin in return for sterling money advanced. Not a reader, whatever his age, but could tell a like story. I vow and believe there are men of fifty, who will dine well today, who have not paid their school debts yet, and who have not taken up their long-protested promises to pay. Tom, Dick, Harry, my boys, I owe you no grudge, and rather relish that wince with which you will read these meek lines and say, “He means me.” Poor Jack in Hades! Do you remember a certain pecuniary transaction, and a little sum of money you borrowed “until the meeting of Parliament?” Parliament met often in your lifetime: Parliament has met since: but I think I should scarce be more surprised if your ghost glided into the room now, and laid down the amount of our little account, than I should have been if you had paid me in your lifetime with the actual acceptances of the Bank of England. You asked to borrow, but you never intended to pay. I would as soon have believed that a promissory note of Sir John Falstaff (accepted by Messrs. Bardolph and Nym, and payable in Aldgate,) would be as sure to find payment, as that note of the departed--nay, lamented--Jack Thriftless.
He who borrows, meaning to pay, is quite a different person from the individual here described. Many--most, I hope--took Jack's promise for what it was worth--and quite well knew that when he said, “Lend me,” he meant “Give me” twenty pounds. “Give me change for this half-crown,” said Jack; “I know it's a pewter piece;” and you gave him the change in honest silver, and pocketed the counterfeit gravely.