and do the same. No! Leniency in such
a case as that!--The wine would not hurt him--I doubt if there be much
left for him to welcome his guests with. Ha! ha! Now if I could persuade
you, Sir Austin, as you do not take wine before dinner, some day to
favour me with your company at my little country cottage I have a wine
there--the fellow to that--I think you would, I do think you would"--Mr.
Thompson meant to say, he thought his client would arrive at something
of a similar jocund contemplation of his fellows in their degeneracy
that inspirited lawyers after potation, but condensed the sensual
promise into "highly approve."

Sir Austin speculated on his legal adviser with a sour mouth comically
compressed.

It stood clear to him that Thompson before his Port, and Thompson after,
were two different men. To indoctrinate him now was too late: it was
perhaps the time to make the positive use of him he wanted.

He pencilled on a handy slip of paper: "Two prongs of a fork; the
World stuck between them--Port and the Palate: 'Tis one which fails
first--Down goes World;" and again the hieroglyph--"Port-spectacles." He
said, "I shall gladly accompany you this evening, Thompson," words that
transfigured the delighted lawyer, and ensigned the skeleton of a great
Aphorism to his pocket, there to gather flesh and form, with numberless
others in a like condition.

"I came to visit my lawyer," he said to himself. "I think I have been
dealing with The World in epitome!"

CHAPTER XVIII

The rumour circulated that Sir Austin Feverel, the recluse of Raynham,
the rank misogynist, the rich baronet, was in town, looking out a bride
for his only son and uncorrupted heir. Doctor Benjamin Bairam was the
excellent authority. Doctor Bairam had safely delivered Mrs. Deborah
Gossip of this interesting bantling, which was forthwith dandled in
dozens of feminine laps. Doctor Bairam could boast the first interview
with the famous recluse. He had it from his own lips that the object
of the baronet was to look out a bride for his only son and uncorrupted
heir; "and," added the doctor, "she'll be lucky who gets him." Which
was interpreted to mean, that he would be a catch; the doctor probably
intending to allude to certain extraordinary difficulties in the way of
a choice.

A demand was made on the publisher of The Pilgrim's Scrip for all his
outstanding copies. Conventionalities were defied. A summer-shower of
cards fell on the baronet's ta