ere is no need to mention
the name of the solicitor; if there were, he could give the name of his
own solicitor, to whose discretion he could trust implicitly. He dresses
and acts up to his assumed character with the skill of a man who, like
the illustrious Charles Fox, has, though in private representations,
practised the stage-play in which Demosthenes said the triple art of
oratory consisted; who has seen a great deal of the world, and has that
adaptability of intellect which knowledge of the world lends to one who
is so thoroughly in earnest as to his end that he agrees to be sportive
as to his means.

The kind of language he employs when speaking English to Lebeau is that
suited to the role of a dapper young underling of vulgar mind habituated
to vulgar companionships. I feel it due, if not to Graham himself, at
least to the memory of the dignified orator whose name he inherits, so
to modify and soften the hardy style of that peculiar diction in which
he disguises his birth and disgraces his culture, that it is only here
and there that I can venture to indicate the general tone of it; but in
order to supply my deficiencies therein, the reader has only to call
to mind the forms of phraseology which polite novelists in vogue,
especially young-lady novelists, ascribe to well-born gentlemen, and
more emphatically to those in the higher ranks of the Peerage. No doubt
Graham, in his capacity of critic, had been compelled to read, in
order to review, those contributions to refined literature, and had
familiarized himself to a vein of conversation abounding with "swell"
and "stunner" and "awfully jolly," in its libel on manners and outrage
on taste.

He has attended nightly the cafe Jean Jacques; he has improved
acquaintance with M. Georges and M. Lebeau; he has played at billiards,
he has played at dominos, with the latter. He has been much surprised
at the unimpeachable honesty which M. Lebeau has exhibited in both these
games. In billiards, indeed, a man cannot cheat except by disguising
his strength; it is much the same in dominos,--it is skill combined
with luck, as in whist; but in whist there are modes of cheating which
dominos do not allow,--you can't mark a domino as you can a card. It was
perfectly clear to Graham that M. Lebeau did not gain a livelihood by
billiards or dominos at the cafe Jean Jacques. In the former he was not
only a fair but a generous player. He played exceedingly well, despite
his spectacle