By one of those singular compensations in which nature seems now and
then to make a struggle to adjust the average of human characteristics
with something approaching fairness, Snaffle was hardly less gullible
than he was skilful in ensnaring others. He was continually making a
fortune by launching some bogus stock or other, but it seemed always to
be fated that he should lose it again in some equally wild scheme
started by a brother sharper. Perhaps between his professional strokes
he was obliged to practise at raising credulity in himself merely to
keep his hand in; perhaps it was simply that the habit of believing
financial absurdities had become a sort of second nature in him; or yet
again is it possible that he felt obliged to assume credulity in regard
to the falsehoods of his fellow sharpers, as a sort of equivalent for
the faith he so often demanded of them; but, whatever may have been the
reason, it was at least a fact that his money went in much the same way
it came.
In person, Erastus Snaffle was not especially prepossessing. His face
would have been more attractive had the first edition of his chin been
larger and the succeeding ones smaller, while the days when he could
still boast of a waist were so far in the irrevocable past that the
imagination refused so long a flight as would be required to reach it.
His eyes were small and heavy-lidded, but in them smouldered a dull
gleam of cunning that at times kindled into a pointed flame.
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