of your class, train your tenantry in habits of respect to the
peerage, oppose at every step the advancing power of the people, support
your rotten order, and be ready for its sake to wade knee-deep in
churls' blood; as it is, you've no power; you can do nothing; you're
wrecked and stranded on the shores of commerce; forced into collision
with practical men, with whom you cannot cope, for YOU'LL NEVER BE A
TRADESMAN."

The first part of Hunsden's speech moved me not at all, or, if it did,
it was only to wonder at the perversion into which prejudice had twisted
his judgment of my character; the concluding sentence, however, not only
moved, but shook me; the blow it gave was a severe one, because Truth
wielded the weapon. If I smiled now, it, was only in disdain of myself.

Hunsden saw his advantage; he followed it up.

"You'll make nothing by trade," continued he; "nothing more than the
crust of dry bread and the draught of fair water on which you now live;
your only chance of getting a competency lies in marrying a rich widow,
or running away with an heiress."

"I leave such shifts to be put in practice by those who devise them,"
said I, rising.

"And even that is hopeless," he went on coolly. "What widow would have
you? Much less, what heiress? You're not bold and venturesome enough for
the one, nor handsome and fascinating enough for the other. You think
perhaps you look intelligent and polished; carry your intellect and
refinement to market, and tell me in a private note what price is bid
for them."

Mr. Hunsden had taken his tone for the night; the string he struck was
out of tune, he would finger no other. Averse to discord, of which I had
enough every day and all day long, I concluded, at last, that silence
and solitude were preferable to jarring converse; I bade him good-night.

"What! Are you going, lad? Well, good-night: you'll find the door." And
he sat still in front of the fire, while I left the room and the house.
I had got a good way on my return to my lodgings before I found out that
I was walking very fast, and breathing very hard, and that my nails were
almost stuck into the palms of my clenched hands, and that my teeth were
set fast; on making this discovery, I relaxed both my pace, fists, and
jaws, but I could not so soon cause the regrets rushing rapidly through
my mind to slacken their tide. Why did I make myself a tradesman? Why
did I enter Hunsden's house this evening? Why, at dawn to-morro