less culprits, the pleasant human instinct of the matchmaker
softened his heart.

"Well, I call that cool," he repeated; "you seem to count very securely
upon Uncle Ned. But look here, Gid, I thought I had told you to keep
away?"

"To keep away from Maidenhead," replied Gid. "But how should I expect to
find you here?"

"There is something in that," Mr. Bloomfield admitted. "You see I
thought it better that even you should be ignorant of my address; those
rascals, the Finsburys, would have wormed it out of you. And just to put
them off the scent I hoisted these abominable colours. But that is not
all, Gid; you promised me to work, and here I find you playing the fool
at Padwick."

"Please, Mr. Bloomfield, you must not be hard on Mr. Forsyth," said
Julia. "Poor boy, he is in dreadful straits."

"What's this, Gid?" inquired the uncle. "Have you been fighting? or is
it a bill?"

These, in the opinion of the Squirradical, were the two misfortunes
incident to gentlemen; and indeed both were culled from his own career.
He had once put his name (as a matter of form) on a friend's paper; it
had cost him a cool thousand; and the friend had gone about with the
fear of death upon him ever since, and never turned a corner without
scouting in front of him for Mr. Bloomfield and the oaken staff. As for
fighting, the Squirradical was always on the brink of it; and once, when
(in the character of president of a Radical club) he had cleared out the
hall of his opponents, things had gone even further. Mr. Holtum, the
Conservative candidate, who lay so long on the bed of sickness, was
prepared to swear to Mr. Bloomfield. "I will swear to it in any
court--it was the hand of that brute that struck me down," he was
reported to have said; and when he was thought to be sinking, it was
known that he had made an _ante-mortem_ statement in that sense. It was
a cheerful day for the Squirradical when Holtum was restored to his
brewery.

"It's much worse than that," said Gideon; "a combination of
circumstances really providentially unjust--a--in fact, a syndicate of
murderers seem to have perceived my latent ability to rid them of the
traces of their crime. It's a legal study after all, you see!" And with
these words, Gideon, for the second time that day, began to describe the
adventures of the Broadwood Grand.

"I must write to the _Times_," cried Mr. Bloomfield.

"Do you want to get me disbarred?" asked Gideon.

"Disbarred! Come, it c