Eh ? '' said Mr. Brown as he withdrew in something of a pet . `` That , I suppose , will be provided for off-hand by drawing a check on Bubble Bank ? '' John Brown and Peter Goldthwaite had been jointly known to the commercial world between twenty and thirty years before under the firm of Goldthwaite & Brown ; which copartnership , however , was speedily dissolved by the natural incongruity of its constituent parts . Since that event , John Brown , with exactly the qualities of a thousand other John Browns , and by just such plodding methods as they used , had prospered wonderfully and become one of the wealthiest John Browns on earth . Peter Goldthwaite , on the contrary , after innumerable schemes which ought to have collected all the coin and paper currency of the country into his coffers , was as needy a gentleman as ever wore a patch upon his elbow . The contrast between him and his former partner may be briefly marked , for Brown never reckoned upon luck , yet always had it , while Peter made luck the main condition of his projects , and always missed it . While the means held out his speculations had been magnificent , but were chiefly confined of late years to such small business as adventures in the lottery . Once he had gone on a gold-gathering expedition somewhere to the South , and ingeniously contrived to empty his pockets more thoroughly than ever , while others , doubtless , were filling theirs with native bullion by the handful . More recently he had expended a legacy of a thousand or two of dollars in purchasing Mexican scrip , and thereby became the proprietor of a province ; which , however , so far as Peter could find out , was situated where he might have had an empire for the same money -- in the clouds . From a search after this valuable real estate Peter returned so gaunt and threadbare that on reaching New England the scarecrows in the corn-fields beckoned to him as he passed by . `` They did but flutter in the wind , '' quoth Peter Goldthwaite . No , Peter , they beckoned , for the scarecrows knew their brother . At the period of our story his whole visible income would not have paid the tax of the old mansion in which we find him . It was one of those rusty , moss-grown , many-peaked wooden houses which are scattered about the streets of our elder towns , with a beetle-browed second story projecting over the foundation , as if it frowned at the novelty around it . This old paternal edifice , needy as he was , and though , being centrally situated on the principal street of the town , it would have brought him a handsome sum , the sagacious Peter had his own reasons for never parting with , either by auction or private sale . There seemed , indeed , to be a fatality that connected him with his birthplace ; for , often as he had stood on the verge of ruin , and standing there even now , he had not yet taken the step beyond it which would have compelled him to surrender the house to his creditors . So here he dwelt with bad luck till good should come . Here , then , in his kitchen -- the only room where a spark of fire took off the chill of a November evening -- poor Peter Goldthwaite had just been visited by his rich old partner . At the close of their interview , Peter , with rather a mortified look , glanced downward at his dress , parts of which appeared as ancient as the days of Goldthwaite & Brown .
His upper garment was a mixed surtout , woefully faded , and patched with newer stuff on each elbow ; beneath this he XXXXX a threadbare black coat , some of the silk buttons of which had been replaced with others of a different pattern ; and , lastly , though he lacked not a pair of gray pantaloons , they were very shabby ones , and had been partially turned brown by the frequent toasting of Peter 's shins before a scanty fire .
appeared beckoned dissolved filling find paid passed projecting taken wore