fellow; you must love mankind; you must have an interest in
the welfare of posterity."

"Love mankind? Interest in posterity? Bless my soul, Cousin Peter, I
hope you have no prospectuses in _your_ pockets; no schemes for draining
the Pontine Marshes out of pure love to mankind; no propositions for
doubling the income-tax, as a reserve fund for posterity, should our
coal-fields fail three thousand years hence. Love of mankind! Rubbish!
This comes of living in the country."

"But you do love the human race; you do care for the generations that
are to come."

"I! Not a bit of it. On the contrary, I rather dislike the human race,
taking it altogether, and including the Australian bushmen; and I don't
believe any man who tells me that he would grieve half as much if
ten millions of human beings were swallowed up by an earthquake at a
considerable distance from his own residence, say Abyssinia, as he would
for a rise in his butcher's bills. As to posterity, who would consent
to have a month's fit of the gout or tic-douloureux in order that in the
fourth thousand year, A. D., posterity should enjoy a perfect system of
sewage?"

Sir Peter, who had recently been afflicted by a very sharp attack
of neuralgia, shook his head, but was too conscientious not to keep
silence.

"To turn the subject," said Mivers, relighting the cigar which he had
laid aside while delivering himself of his amiable opinions, "I think
you would do well, while in town, to call on your old friend Travers,
and be introduced to Cecilia. If you think as favourably of her as I do,
why not ask father and daughter to pay you a visit at Exmundham? Girls
think more about a man when they see the place which he can offer
to them as a home, and Exmundham is an attractive place to
girls,--picturesque and romantic."

"A very good idea," cried Sir Peter, heartily. "And I want also to make
the acquaintance of Chillingly Gordon. Give me his address."

"Here is his card on the chimney-piece, take it; you will always find
him at home till two o'clock. He is too sensible to waste the forenoon
in riding out in Hyde Park with young ladies."

"Give me your frank opinion of that young kinsman. Kenelm tells me that
he is clever and ambitious."

"Kenelm speaks truly. He is not a man who will talk stuff about love of
mankind and posterity. He is of our day, with large, keen, wide-awake
eyes, that look only on such portions of mankind as can be of use to
him, and do not