e out of the minister's gift. These intimations, though communicated
in the most warm professions of friendship and regard, gave great
umbrage to the young gentleman, who considered them as the evasions
of an insincere courtier, and loudly complained of them as such to
his lordship, signifying, at the same time, an intention to sell his
mortgage for ready money, which he would expend to the last farthing in
thwarting his honour, in the very first election he should patronize.
His lordship never wanted a proper exhortation upon these occasions. He
did not now endeavour to pacify him with assurances of the minister's
favour, because he perceived that these medicines had, by repeated use,
lost their effect upon our adventurer, whose menaces he now combated
by representing that the minister's purse was heavier than that of
Mr. Pickle; that, therefore, should he make a point of opposing his
interest, the youth must infallibly fail in the contest; in which case
he would find himself utterly destitute of the means of subsistence, and
consequently precluded from all hope of provision.

This was an observation, the truth of which our young gentleman could
not pretend to doubt, though it did not at all tend to the vindication
of his honour's conduct. Indeed, Pickle began to suspect the sincerity
of his own patron, who, in his opinion, had trifled with his impatience,
and even eluded, by sorry excuses, his desire of having another
private audience of the first mover. His lordship also began to be less
accessible than usual; and Peregrine had been obliged to dun the steward
with repeated demands, before he could finger the last quarter of his
interest. Alarmed by these considerations, he went and consulted the
nobleman whom he had obliged in the affair of his son, and had the
mortification to hear but a very indifferent character of the person in
whom he had so long confided. This new adviser, who, though a courtier,
was a rival of the other, gave our adventurer to understand, that he had
been leaning upon a broken reed; that his professed patron was a man of
shattered fortune and decayed interest, which extended no farther than
a smile and a whisper; that, for his own part, he should have been proud
of an opportunity to use his influence with the minister in behalf of
Mr. Pickle. "But, since you have put yourself under the protection of
another peer," said he, "whose connections interfere with mine, I cannot
now espouse your cause,