reshfield Sumner's circulation of
a crisp anecdote--in spite of Lady Gosstre's kind effort to stop him by
engaging him in conversation, Mr. Pole forced on for a speech. He said
that he had not been the thing lately. It might be his legs, as his dear
friend Martha, on his right, insisted; but he had felt it in his head,
though as strong as any man present.

"Harrk at 'm!" cried Mrs. Chump, letting her eyes roll fondly away from
him into her glass.

"Business, my lady!" Mr. Pole resumed. "Ah, you don't know what that
is. We've got to work hard to keep our heads up equal with you. We don't
swim with corks. And my old friend, Ralph Tinley--he sells iron, and has
got a mine. That's simple. But, my God, ma'am, when a man has his eye on
the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic, and the Baltic, and the Black Sea,
and half-a-dozen colonies at once, he--you--"

"Well, it's a precious big eye he's got, Pole," Mrs. Chump came to his
relief.

"--he don't know whether he's a ruined dog, or a man to hold up his head
in any company."

"Oh, Lord, Pole, if ye're going to talk of beggary!" Mrs. Chump threw
up her hands. "My lady, I naver could abide the name of 't. I'm a kind
heart, ye know, but I can't bear a ragged friend. I hate 'm! He seems to
give me a pinch."

Having uttered this, it struck her that it was of a kind to convulse
Mrs. Lupin, for whose seizures she could never accurately account; and
looking round, she perceived, sure enough, that little forlorn body
agitated, with a handkerchief to her mouth.

"As to Besworth," Mr. Pole had continued, "I might buy twenty Besworths.
If--if the cut shows the right card. If--" Sweat started on his
forehead, and he lifted his eyebrows, blinking. "But none!" (he smote
the table) "none can say I haven't been a good father! I've educated
my girls to marry the best the land can show. I bought a house to marry
them out of; it was their own idea." He caught Arabella's eyes. "I
thought so, at all events; for why should I have paid the money if I
hadn't thought so? when then--yes, that sum..." (was he choking!) "saved
me!--saved me!"

A piteous desperate outburst marked the last words, that seemed to
struggle from a tightened cord.

"Not that there's anything the matter," he resumed, with a very brisk
wink. "I'm quite sound: heart's sound, lungs sound, stomach regular. I
can see, and smell, and hear. Sense of touch is rather lumpy at times, I
know; but the doctor says it's nothing--nothing