One of the few instances I remember
of our Jorian stooping to a pun, is upon the contango: ingenious truly,
but objectionable, because a pun. I shall not be guilty of repeating it.
"The stockmarket is the national snapdragon bowl," he says, and is very
amusing upon the Jews; whether quite fairly, Mr. Beltham knows better
than I, on my honour.'

He appealed lightly to the squire, for thus he danced on the crater's
brink, and had for answer,

'You're a cool scoundrel, Richmond.'

'I choose to respect you, rather in spite of yourself, I fear, sir,' said
my father, bracing up.

'Did you hear my conversation with my daughter?'

'I heard, if I may say so, the lion taking his share of it.'

'All roaring to you, was it?'

'Mr. Beltham, we have our little peculiarities; I am accustomed to think
of a steam-vent when I hear you indulging in a sentence of unusual
length, and I hope it is for our good, as I thoroughly believe it is for
yours, that you should deliver yourself freely.'

'So you tell me; like a stage lacquey!' muttered the old man, with
surprising art in caricaturing a weakness in my father's bearing, of
which I was cruelly conscious, though his enunciation was flowing. He
lost his naturalness through forcing for ease in the teeth of insult.

'Grandada, aunty and I will leave you,' said Janet, waxing importunate.

'When I've done,' said he, facing his victim savagely. 'The fellow
pretends he didn't understand. She's here to corroborate. Richmond,
there, my daughter, Dorothy Beltham, there's the last of your fools and
dupes. She's a truthful woman, I'll own, and she'll contradict me if what
I say is not the fact. That twenty-five thousand from "Government" came
out of her estate.'

'Out of--'

'Out of be damned, sir! She's the person who paid it.'

'If the "damns" have set up, you may as well let the ladies go,' said I.

He snapped at me like a rabid dog in career.

'She's the person--one of your petticoat "Government"--who paid--do you
hear me, Richmond?--the money to help you to keep your word: to help you
to give your Balls and dinners too. She--I won't say she told you, and
you knew it--she paid it. She sent it through her Mr. Bannerbridge. Do
you understand now? You had it from her. My God! look at the fellow!'

A dreadful gape of stupefaction had usurped the smiles on my father's
countenance; his eyes rolled over, he tried to articulate, and was indeed
a spectacle for an enemy. His convulsed fra