ou can see he does. In
his odious slang way, he says he's 'some,' and 'a brick;' and he's
a little anxious to please him, though he professes not to care for
anybody. Now, Dick has pretty sharp sense, after all, or he'd never
have been just where he is."

Our friend John, during these days preceding the party, the party
itself, and the clearing up after it, enacted submissively that part
of unconditional surrender which the master of the house, if well
trained, generally acts on such occasions. He resembled the prize ox,
which is led forth adorned with garlands, ribbons, and docility, to
grace a triumphal procession. He went where he was told, did as he
was bid, marched to the right, marched to the left, put on gloves and
cravat, and took them off, entirely submissive to the word of his
little general; and exhibited, in short, an edifying spectacle of that
pleasant domestic animal, a tame husband. He had to make atonement for
being a reformer, and for endeavoring to live like a Christian, by
conceding to his wife all this latitude of indulgence; and he meant to
go through it like a man and a philosopher. To be sure, in his eyes,
it was all so much unutterable bosh and nonsense; and bosh and
nonsense for which he was eventually to settle the bills: but he armed
himself with the patient reflection that all things have their end in
time,--that fireworks and Chinese lanterns, bands of music and kid
gloves, ruffs and puffs, and pinkings and quillings, and all sorts of
unspeakable eatables with French names, would ere long float down the
stream of time, and leave their record only in a few bad colds and
days of indigestion, which also time would mercifully cure.

So John steadied his soul with a view of that comfortable future, when
all this fuss should be over, and the coast cleared for something
better. Moreover, John found this good result of his patience: that he
learned a little something in a Christian way by it. Men of elevated
principle and moral honesty often treat themselves to such large
slices of contempt and indignation, in regard to the rogues of
society, as to forget a common brotherhood of pity. It is sometimes
wholesome for such men to be obliged to tolerate a scamp to the extent
of exchanging with him the ordinary benevolences of social life.

John, in discharging the duty of a host to Dick Follingsbee, found
himself, after a while, looking on him with pity, as a poor creature,
like the rich fool in the G