icity of Sampson's answers to the insidious questions of the
barrister placed the bonhomie of his character in a more luminous point
of view than Mannering had yet seen it. Upon the same occasion he drew
forth a strange quantity of miscellaneous and abstruse, though, generally
speaking, useless learning. The lawyer afterwards compared his mind to
the magazine of a pawnbroker, stowed with goods of every description, but
so cumbrously piled together, and in such total disorganisation, that the
owner can never lay his hands upon any one article at the moment he has
occasion for it.

As for the advocate himself, he afforded at least as much exercise to
Sampson as he extracted amusement from him. When the man of law began to
get into his altitudes, and his wit, naturally shrewd and dry, became
more lively and poignant, the Dominie looked upon him with that sort of
surprise with which we can conceive a tame bear might regard his future
associate, the monkey, on their being first introduced to each other. It
was Mr. Pleydell's delight to state in grave and serious argument some
position which he knew the Dominie would be inclined to dispute. He then
beheld with exquisite pleasure the internal labour with which the honest
man arranged his ideas for reply, and tasked his inert and sluggish
powers to bring up all the heavy artillery of his learning for
demolishing the schismatic or heretical opinion which had been stated,
when behold, before the ordnance could be discharged, the foe had quitted
the post and appeared in a new position of annoyance on the Dominie's
flank or rear. Often did he exclaim 'Prodigious!' when, marching up to
the enemy in full confidence of victory, he found the field evacuated,
and it may be supposed that it cost him no little labour to attempt a new
formation. 'He was like a native Indian army,' the Colonel said,
'formidable by numerical strength and size of ordnance, but liable to be
thrown into irreparable confusion by a movement to take them in flank.'
On the whole, however, the Dominie, though somewhat fatigued with these
mental exertions, made at unusual speed and upon the pressure of the
moment, reckoned this one of the white days of his life, and always
mentioned Mr. Pleydell as a very erudite and fa-ce-ti-ous person.

By degrees the rest of the party dropped off and left these three
gentlemen together. Their conversation turned to Mrs. Bertram's
settlements. 'Now what could drive it into the nodd