n Greville was pressed into service as their joint
cavalier. And thus Percival's habitual intercourse with his two
principal correspondents received a temporary check.

CHAPTER IV. JOHN ARDWORTH.

At noon the next day Beck, restored to his grandeur, was at the helm of
his state; Percival was vainly trying to be amused by the talk of two or
three loungers who did him the honour to smoke a cigar in his rooms; and
John Ardworth sat in his dingy cell in Gray's Inn, with a pile of law
books on the table, and the daily newspapers carpeting a footstool of
Hansard's Debates upon the floor,--no unusual combination of studies
amongst the poorer and more ardent students of the law, who often owe
their earliest, nor perhaps their least noble, earnings to employment
in the empire of the Press. By the power of a mind habituated to labour,
and backed by a frame of remarkable strength and endurance, Ardworth
grappled with his arid studies not the less manfully for a night mainly
spent in a printer's office, and stinted to less than four hours' actual
sleep. But that sleep was profound and refreshing as a peasant's. The
nights thus devoted to the Press (he was employed in the sub-editing
of a daily journal), the mornings to the law, he kept distinct the two
separate callings with a stern subdivision of labour which in itself
proved the vigour of his energy and the resolution of his will. Early
compelled to shift for himself and carve out his own way, he had
obtained a small fellowship at the small college in which he had passed
his academic career. Previous to his arrival in London, by contributions
to political periodicals and a high reputation at that noble debating
society in Cambridge which has trained some of the most eminent
of living public men [Amongst those whom the "Union" almost
contemporaneously prepared for public life, and whose distinction has
kept the promise of their youth, we may mention the eminent barristers,
Messrs. Austin and Cockburn; and amongst statesmen, Lord Grey, Mr. C.
Buller, Mr. Charles Villiers, and Mr. Macaulay. Nor ought we to forget
those brilliant competitors for the prizes of the University, Dr.
Kennedy (now head-master of Shrewsbury School) and the late Winthrop M.
Praed.], he had established a name which was immediately useful to him
in obtaining employment on the Press. Like most young men of practical
ability, he was an eager politician. The popular passion of the
day kindled his enthusias