on would greatly have
preferred a little longer dalliance over the bottle, he politely gave
one arm to Mrs. Ricketts and the other to Martha, issuing forth from the
Cursaal in all the pride of a conqueror.

CHAPTER XVII. NELLY'S TRIALS

While Mr. Dalton is accompanying his guests along the Lichtenthal Alley,
and describing the various objects of interest on either hand, we will
take the opportunity of explaining to our reader why it happened that
honest Peter no longer inhabited the little quiet quarters above the
toyshop.

By Kate's liberality, for some time back he had been most freely
supplied with money. Scarcely a week passed over without a line from
Abel Kraus to say that such or such a sum was placed to his credit; and
Dalton once more revelled in those spendthrift habits that he loved.
At moments, little flashes of prudential resolve would break upon him.
Thoughts of Ireland and of the "old place" would arise, and he would
half determine on some course of economy which might again restore
him to his home and country. But the slightest prospect of immediate
pleasure was sufficient to rout these wise resolves, and Baden was
precisely the spot to suggest such "distractions." There was nothing
Peter so much liked in the life of this watering-place as the facility
with which acquaintance was formed. The stately reserve of English
people was his antipathy, and here he saw that all this was laid aside,
and that people conversed freely with the neighbor that chance had
given, and that even intimacies grew up between those who scarcely knew
each other's names.

Whatever might be thought of these practices by more fastidious critics,
to Peter Dalton they appeared admirable. In his estimation the world was
a great Donnybrook Fair, where everybody came to amuse and be amused.
Grave faces and careworn looks, he thought, should stay at home, and not
disturb the harmony of what he deemed a great convivial gathering.

It may easily be guessed from this what class of persons found access
to his intimacy, and how every smooth-tongued adventurer, every
well-dressed and plausible-looking pretender to fashion, became his
companion. Nothing but honest Peter's ignorance of foreign languages set
any limit to his acquaintance; and, even with this, he had a shake-hands
intimacy with every Chevalier d'Industrie of France and Germany, and a
cigar-lending-and-lighting treaty with every long-haired Pole in Baden.

As he dined ev