however, did not come out exactly as it should have done. Many
things arose between us--such as diverse occupation, different hours of
work and food, and a little split in the taste of trowsers, which, of
course, should not have been. He liked the selvage down his legs,
while I thought it unartistic, and, going much into the graphic line, I
pressed my objections strongly.

But George, in the handsomest manner--as now, looking back on the case,
I acknowledge--waived my objections, and insisted as little as he could
upon his own.

And again we became as tolerant as any two men, at all alike, can be of
one another.

He, by some postern of influence, got into some dry ditch of the
Treasury, and there, as in an old castle-moat, began to be at home, and
move, gently and after his seniors, as the young ducks follow the old
ones. And at every waddle he got more money.

My fortune, however, was not so nice. I had not Sir Joseph, of Treasury
cellars, to light me with his name and memory into a snug cell of my
own. I had nothing to look to but courage, and youth, and education, and
three-quarters of a hundred pounds a year, with some little change to
give out of it. Yet why should I have doubted? Now, I wonder at my own
misgivings; yet all of them still return upon me, if I ever am persuaded
just to try Welsh rabbit. Enough, that I got on at last, to such an
extent that the man at the dairy offered me half a year's milk for a
sketch of a cow that had never belonged to him.

George, meanwhile, having something better than a brush for a walking
stick and an easel to sit down upon, had taken unto himself a wife--a
lady as sweet and bright as could be--by name Emily Atkinson. In truth,
she was such a charming person that I myself, in a quiet way, had taken
a very great fancy to her before George Bowring saw her; but as soon as
I found what a desperate state the heart of poor George was reduced to,
and came to remember that he was fitted by money to marry, while I was
not, it appeared to me my true duty toward the young lady and him, and
even myself, to withdraw from the field, and have nothing to say if they
set up their horses together.

So George married Emily, and could not imagine why it was that I strove
in vain to appear as his "best man," at the rails where they do it.

For though I had ordered a blue coat and buttons, and a cashmere
waistcoat (amber-coloured, with a braid of peonies), yet at the last
moment my courage