ng paper.'

'What's this? Why print my name?' I cried.

'Merely the correction of an error. I have to insist, my dear boy, that
you claim no privileges: you are apart from them. Mr. Jopson, I
beseech you, not a minute's delay in delivering that. Fetch me from
the printer's my pamphlet this afternoon. Mr. Jacobs, my compliments to
Dettermain and Newson: I request them to open proceedings instanter, and
let the world know of it. Good-morning, gentlemen.'

And now, turning to me, my father fenced me with the whole weight of his
sententious volubility, which was the force of a river. Why did my name
appear in the papers? Because I was his son. But he assured me that he
carefully separated me from public companionship with his fortunes,
and placed me on the side of my grandfather, as a plain gentleman of
England, the heir of the most colossal wealth possible in the country.

'I dis-sociate you from me, Richie, do you see? I cause it to be
declared that you need, on no account, lean on me. Jopson will bring
you my pamphlet--my Declaration of Rights--to peruse. In the Press, in
Literature, at Law, and on social ground, I meet the enemy, and I
claim my own; by heaven, I do! And I will down to the squire for a
distraction, if you esteem it necessary, certainly. Half-a-dozen words
to him. Why, do you maintain him to be insensible to a title for you?
No, no. And ask my friends. I refer him to any dozen of my friends to
convince him I have the prize almost in my possession. Why, dear boy, I
have witnesses, living witnesses, to the ceremony. Am I, tell me, to be
deprived of money now, once again, for the eleventh time? Oh! And put
aside my duty to you, I protest I am bound in duty to her who bore
me--you have seen her miniature: how lovely that dear woman was! how
gentle!--bound in duty to her to clear her good name. This does not
affect you...'

'Oh, but it does,' he allowed me to plead.

'Ay, through your love for your dada.'

He shook me by both hands. I was touched with pity, and at the same
time in doubt whether it was not an actor that swayed me; for I was
discontented, and could not speak my discontent; I was overborne,
overflowed. His evasion of the matter of my objections relating to
the princess I felt to be a palpable piece of artfulness, but I had to
acknowledge to myself that I knew what his argument would be, and how
overwhelmingly his defence of it would spring forth. My cowardice
shrank from provoking a recur