have had Gerald there in the Gallery sometimes. It is just as well he
should know what is being done."

"Quite as well."

"I shouldn't wonder if he gets a seat some day."

"I don't know how that may be."

"He won't change as I have done. He'll stick to your side. Indeed I
think he'd do better in the House than I shall. He has more gift of
the gab."

"That is not the first thing requisite."

"I know all that, sir. I've read your letter more than once, and I
showed it to him."

There was something sweet and pleasant in the young man's manner by
which the father could hardly not be captivated. They had now sat
down, and the servant had brought in the unusual accessories for a
morning feast. "What is all that?" asked the Duke.

"Gerald and I are so awfully hungry of a morning," said the son,
apologising.

"Well;--it's a very good thing to be hungry;--that is if you can get
plenty to eat. Salmon, is it? I don't think I'll have any myself.
Kidneys! Not for me. I think I'll take a bit of fried bacon. I also
am hungry, but not awfully hungry."

"You never seem to me to eat anything, sir."

"Eating is an occupation from which I think a man takes the more
pleasure the less he considers it. A rural labourer who sits on the
ditch-side with his bread and cheese and an onion has more enjoyment
out of it than any Lucullus."

"But he likes a good deal of it."

"I do not think he ever over-eats himself,--which Lucullus does. I
have envied a ploughman his power,--his dura ilia,--but never an
epicure the appreciative skill of his palate. If Gerald does not make
haste he will have to exercise neither the one nor the other upon
that fish."

"I will leave a bit for him, sir,--and here he is. You are twenty
minutes late, Gerald. My father says that bread and cheese and onions
would be better for you than salmon and stewed kidneys."

"No, Silverbridge;--I said no such thing; but that if he were a
hedger and ditcher the bread and cheese and onions would be as good."

"I should not mind trying them at all," said Gerald. "Only one never
does have such things for breakfast. Last winter a lot of us skated
to Ely, and we ate two or three loaves of bread and a whole cheese at
a pot-house! And as for beer, we drank the public dry."

"It was because for the time you had been a hedger and ditcher."

"Proby was a ditcher I know, when he went right through into one of
the dykes. Just push on that dish, Silverbridge. It's no good yo