stablishment which has been named, but to
the nature of such tables in general. A solitary mutton-chop in an
hotel coffee-room is not a banquet to be envied by any god; and if
the mutton-chop be converted into soup, fish, little dishes, big
dishes, and the rest, the matter becomes worse and not better. What
comfort are you to have, seated alone on that horsehair chair,
staring into the room and watching the waiters as they whisk about
their towels? No one but an Englishman has ever yet thought of
subjecting himself to such a position as that! But here we will leave
John Eames, and in doing so I must be allowed to declare that only
now, at this moment, has he entered on his manhood. Hitherto he
has been a hobbledehoy,--a calf, as it were, who had carried his
calfishness later into life than is common with calves; but who did
not, perhaps, on that account, give promise of making a worse ox than
the rest of them. His life hitherto, as recorded in these pages, had
afforded him no brilliant success, had hardly qualified him for the
role of hero which he has been made to play. I feel that I have
been in fault in giving such prominence to a hobbledehoy, and that
I should have told my story better had I brought Mr Crosbie more
conspicuously forward on my canvas. He at any rate has gotten to
himself a wife--as a hero always should do; whereas I must leave my
poor friend Johnny without any matrimonial prospects.

It was thus that he thought of himself as he sat moping over his
solitary table in the hotel coffee-room. He acknowledged to himself
that he had not hitherto been a man; but at the same time he made
some resolution which, I trust, may assist him in commencing his
manhood from this date.

CHAPTER LX

Conclusion

It was early in June that Lily went up to her uncle at the Great
House, pleading for Hopkins,--pleading that to Hopkins might be
restored all the privileges of head gardener at the Great House.
There was some absurdity in this, seeing that he had never really
relinquished his privileges; but the manner of the quarrel had been
in this wise.

There was in those days, and had been for years, a vexed question
between Hopkins and Jolliffe the bailiff on the matter of stable
manure. Hopkins had pretended to the right of taking what he required
from the farmyard, without asking leave of any one. Jolliffe in
return had hinted, that if this were so, Hopkins would take it all.
"But I can't eat it," Hopkins h