ed."

"Looking at it all round is just what I don't like, Mr Scruby, But if
a man will have a whistle, he must pay for it."

"You can't do it cheap for any of these metropolitan seats; you
can't, indeed, Mr Vavasor. That is, a new man can't. When you've
been in four or five times, like old Duncombe, why then, of course,
you may snap your fingers at such men as Grimes. But the Chelsea
districts ain't dear. I don't call them by any means dear. Now
Marylebone is dear,--and so is Southwark. It's dear, and nasty;
that's what the borough is. Only that I never tell tales, I could
tell you a tale, Mr Vavasor, that'd make your hair stand on end; I
could indeed."

"Ah! the game is hardly worth the candle, I believe."

"That depends on what way you choose to look at it. A seat in
Parliament is a great thing to a man who wants to make his way;--a
very great thing;--specially when a man's young, like you, Mr
Vavasor."

"Young!" said George. "Sometimes it seems to me as though I've been
living for a hundred years. But I won't trouble you with that, Mr
Scruby, and I believe I needn't keep you any longer." With that, he
got up and bowed the attorney out of the room, with just a little
more ceremony than he had shown to the publican.

"Young!" said Vavasor to himself, when he was left alone. "There's
my uncle, or the old squire,--they're both younger men than I am.
One cares for his dinner, and the other for his bullocks and his
trees. But what is there that I care for, unless it is not getting
among the sheriff's officers for debt?" Then he took out a little
memorandum-book from his breast-pocket, and having made in it an
entry as to the amount and date of that bill which he had just
accepted on the publican's behalf, he conned over the particulars of
its pages. "Very blue; very blue, indeed," he said to himself when he
had completed the study. "But nobody shall say I hadn't the courage
to play the game out, and that old fellow must die some day, one
supposes. If I were not a fool, I should make it up with him before
he went; but I am a fool, and shall remain so to the last." Soon
after that he dressed himself slowly, reading a little every now and
then as he did so. When his toilet was completed, and his Sunday
newspapers sufficiently perused, he took up his hat and umbrella and
sauntered out.

CHAPTER XIV

Alice Vavasor Becomes Troubled

Kate Vavasor had sent to her brother only the first half of her
cousin's le