s ostentation too.
It added to his popularity, and popularity had become as the air he
breathed. _For the only real test of generosity is self-denial_. If
you go without something you really want in order to oblige someone
else, that is genuine, admirable, and somewhat rare. But if you have
everything you want and forego nothing whatever by conferring a favour,
you may show good nature, careless indifference to the value of money,
or a pleasant sense of patronage, but not necessarily true generosity.
That _may_ be the spirit which dictates your conduct, but the act does
not prove it.

Now, in Crawley's case, his mother was the only one who had to exercise
self-denial. But he never thought of that. He prided himself on being
a very generous fellow, and so he was by nature, but not so much so as
he took credit for, and he was growing more selfish than otherwise;
which was a pity. He went up to London, and was measured for his dress
clothes, and got his boots and gaiters, and then sought out and found
the gun-shop, mentioned in the _Field_, and instead of pretending to be
knowing about firearms, wisely told the shopman why he came to him, and
that he trusted him entirely, being quite unable to judge for himself,
which made the man take particular pains to select him a good one, and
show him how to judge if the stock suited him; namely, by fixing his
eyes on an object, and bringing the gun sharply up to his shoulder.
Then closing the left eye, and looking along the barrel with the right,
to see whether the sight was on the object. If he had to raise or lower
the muzzle to obtain that result, it was obvious that it did not come up
right for him. At length he got one which suited him exactly, and he
was shown the mechanism by which the breeches were opened and closed,
and learned how to take it to pieces, put it together again, clean it,
and oil it.

Finally he bought it, together with a hundred cartridges, fifty being
loaded with snipe-shot, and fifty with number five; all on the
gunmaker's recommendation, to whom he explained the kind of shooting he
expected to have. He would not let it be sent home for him, but took it
off himself.

"You only hold it straight, sir, and I'll guarantee the gun will kill
well enough," said the maker as he left.

What a charm there is in a new bat, a new gun, a new fly-rod, a new
racket; how one longs for an opportunity to try it! Really it is often
a consolation to me to think