cularly the beauty of Miss Sarah Lunn. Not one of these delicacies
had he ever offered to poor Jacob, for David was not a young man to waste
his jujubes and barley-sugar in giving pleasure to people from whom he
expected nothing. But an idiot with equivocal intentions and a pitchfork
is as well worth flattering and cajoling as if he were Louis Napoleon. So
David, with a promptitude equal to the occasion, drew out his box of
yellow lozenges, lifted the lid, and performed a pantomime with his mouth
and fingers, which was meant to imply that he was delighted to see his
dear brother Jacob, and seized the opportunity of making him a small
present, which he would find particularly agreeable to the taste. Jacob,
you understand, was not an intense idiot, but within a certain limited
range knew how to choose the good and reject the evil: he took one
lozenge, by way of test, and sucked it as if he had been a philosopher;
then, in as great an ecstacy at its new and complex savour as Caliban at
the taste of Trinculo's wine, chuckled and stroked this suddenly
beneficent brother, and held out his hand for more; for, except in fits
of anger, Jacob was not ferocious or needlessly predatory. David's
courage half returned, and he left off praying; pouring a dozen lozenges
into Jacob's palm, and trying to look very fond of him. He congratulated
himself that he had formed the plan of going to see Miss Sally Lunn this
afternoon, and that, as a consequence, he had brought with him these
propitiatory delicacies: he was certainly a lucky fellow; indeed, it was
always likely Providence should be fonder of him than of other
apprentices, and since he _was_ to be interrupted, why, an idiot was
preferable to any other sort of witness. For the first time in his life,
David thought he saw the advantage of idiots.

As for Jacob, he had thrust his pitchfork into the ground, and had thrown
himself down beside it, in thorough abandonment to the unprecedented
pleasure of having five lozenges in his mouth at once, blinking
meanwhile, and making inarticulate sounds of gustative content. He had
not yet given any sign of noticing the guineas, but in seating himself he
had laid his broad right hand on them, and unconsciously kept it in that
position, absorbed in the sensations of his palate. If he could only be
kept so occupied with the lozenges as not to see the guineas before David
could manage to cover them! That was David's best hope of safety; for