he rejection of a piece
of friendliness involved, and as he saw that the man was sincere, he did
violence to himself, and said: 'Very well; then I'll jump in.'

The postillion was off his horse in a twinkling, and trotted his bandy
legs to undo the door, as to a gentleman who paid. This act of service
Evan valued.

'Suppose I were to ask you to take the sixpence now?' he said, turning
round, with one foot on the step.

'Well, sir,' the postillion sent his hat aside to answer. 'I don't want
it--I'd rather not have it; but there! I'll take it--dash the sixpence!
and we'll cry quits.'

Evan, surprised and pleased with him, dropped the bit of money in his
hand, saying: 'It will fill a pipe for you. While you 're smoking it,
think of me as in your debt. You're the only man I ever owed a penny to.'

The postillion put it in a side pocket apart, and observed: 'A sixpence
kindly meant is worth any crown-piece that's grudged--that it is! In you
jump, sir. It's a jolly night!'

Thus may one, not a conscious sage, play the right tune on this human
nature of ours: by forbearance, put it in the wrong; and then, by not
refusing the burden of an obligation, confer something better. The
instrument is simpler than we are taught to fancy. But it was doubtless
owing to a strong emotion in his soul, as well as to the stuff he was
made of, that the youth behaved as he did. We are now and then above our
own actions; seldom on a level with them. Evan, I dare say, was long in
learning to draw any gratification from the fact that he had achieved
without money the unparalleled conquest of a man. Perhaps he never knew
what immediate influence on his fortune this episode effected.

At Hillford they went their different ways. The postillion wished him
good speed, and Evan shook his hand. He did so rather abruptly, for the
postillion was fumbling at his pocket, and evidently rounding about a
proposal in his mind.

My gentleman has now the road to himself. Money is the clothing of a
gentleman: he may wear it well or ill. Some, you will mark, carry great
quantities of it gracefully: some, with a stinted supply, present a
decent appearance: very few, I imagine, will bear inspection, who are
absolutely stripped of it. All, save the shameless, are toiling to escape
that trial. My gentleman, treading the white highway across the solitary
heaths, that swell far and wide to the moon, is, by the postillion, who
has seen him, pronounced no sham. Nor