others."

"Therefore your hermit's fare is not only the most natural, but the only
naturally palatable, I suppose,--a crust of bread and a draught from the
stream," replied Campbell.

"Or the Clerk of Copmanhurst's dry peas," said Charles.

"The macaroni and grapes of the Neapolitans are as natural and more
palatable," said Willis.

"Rather they are a luxury," said Bateman.

"No," answered Campbell, "not a luxury; a luxury is in its very idea a
something _recherche_. Thus Horace speaks of the '_peregrina lagois_.'
What nature yields _sponte sua_ around you, however delicious, is no
luxury. Wild ducks are no luxury in your old neighbourhood, amid your
Oxford fens, Bateman; nor grapes at Naples."

"Then the old women here are luxurious over their sixpenn'rth of tea,"
said Bateman; "for it comes from China."

Campbell was posed for an instant. Somehow neither he nor Bateman were
quite at their ease, whether with themselves or with each other; it
might be Charles's sudden intrusion, or something which had happened
before it. Campbell answered at length that steamers and railroads were
making strange changes; that time and place were vanishing, and price
would soon be the only measure of luxury.

"This seems the measure also of _grasso_ and _magro_ food in Italy,"
said Willis; "for I think there are dispensations for butcher's meat in
Lent, in consequence of the dearness of bread and oil."

"This seems to show that the age for abstinences and fastings is past,"
observed Campbell; "for it's absurd to keep Lent on beef and mutton."

"Oh, Campbell, what are you saying?" cried Bateman; "past! are we bound
by their lax ways in Italy?"

"I do certainly think," answered Campbell, "that fasting is unsuitable
to this age, in England as well as in Rome."

"Take care, my fine fellows," thought Charles; "keep your ranks, or you
won't secure your prisoner."

"What, not fast on Friday!" cried Bateman; "we always did so most
rigidly at Oxford."

"It does you credit," answered Campbell; "but I am of Cambridge."

"But what do you say to Rubrics and the Calendar?" insisted Bateman.

"They are not binding," answered Campbell.

"They _are_, binding," said Bateman.

A pause, as between the rounds of a boxing-match. Reding interposed:
"Bateman, cut me, please, a bit of your capital bread--home-made, I
suppose?"

"A thousand pardons!" said Bateman:--"not binding?--Pass it to him,
Willis, if you please. Yes, it comes from