trial. You may perceive that Tom Cutbill sleeps like a weazel, and has
always one eye open."

"Was it a very friendly part, then, to lend a man money to prosecute a
claim against your own friend?" asked Jack.

"Lord love ye, I'd do that against my brother. The man of business
and the desk is one thing, the man of human feelings and affections is
another. If a man follows any pursuit worth the name of a pursuit, the
ardor to succeed in it will soon swamp his scruples; aye, and not
leave him one jot the worse for it. Listen to me a minute. Did you ever
practise fly-fishing? Well, can you deny it is in principle as ignoble
a thing as ever was called sport? It begins in a fraud, and it finishes
with a cruelty; and will you tell me that your moral nature, or any
grand thing that you fancy dignifies you, was impaired or stained when
you landed that eight-pound trout on the grass?"

"You forget that men are not trout, Master Cutbill."

"There are a good number of them gudgeons, I am happy to say," cried
he. "Give me a light for my cigar, for I am sick of discussion. Strange
old tumble-down place this--might all be got for a song, I 'd swear.
What a grand speck it would be to start a company to make a watering
place of it: 'The Baths of Cattaro, celebrated in the time of
Diocletian'--eh? Jack, does n't your mouth water at the thought of
'preliminary expenses'?"

"I can't say it does. I've been living among robbers lately, and I found
them very dull company."

"The sailor is rude; his manners smack of the cockpit," said Cutbill,
nudging Augustus in the side. "Oh, dear, how I 'd like a commission to
knock this old town into a bathing machine."

"You'll have ample time to mature your project up at the villa. There,
you see it yonder."

"And is that the British flag I see waving there? Wait a moment till I
master my emotion, and subdue the swelling feelings of my breast."

"I 'll tell you what, Master Cutbill," said Jack, sternly, "if you utter
any stupid rubbish against the Union Jack, I'll be shot if I don't
drop you over the sea-wall for a ducking; and, what's more, I 'll not
apologize to you when you come out."

"Outrage the second. The naval service is not what I remember it."

"Here come the girls," said Augustus. "I hear Julia's merry laugh in
the wood."

"The L'Estrange girl, isn't it?" asked Cutbill; and though Jack started
and turned almost as if to seize him, he never noticed the movement.

"Miss L'Estra