Whether this young gentleman (for he was but three-and-twenty) combined with the miserly vice of an old man, any of the openhanded vices of a young one, was a moot point; so very honourably did he keep his own counsel. He was sensible of the value of appearances as an investment, and liked to dress well; but he drove a bargain for every moveable about him, from the coat on his back to the china on his breakfast-table; and every bargain by representing somebody’s ruin or somebody’s loss, acquired a peculiar charm for him. It was a part of his avarice to take, within narrow bounds, long odds at races; if he won, he drove harder bargains; if he lost, he half starved himself until next time. Why money should be so precious to an ass too dull and mean to exchange it for any other satisfaction, is strange; but there is no animal so sure to get laden with it, as the ass who sees nothing written on the face of the earth and sky but the three letters L.S.D. ⁠—not Luxury, Sensuality, Dissoluteness, which they often stand for, but the three dry letters. Your concentrated fox is seldom comparable to your concentrated ass in money-breeding.