f Linden's visit served
to ripen their acquaintance into intimacy. At length they talked upon
Copperas Bower and its inmates.

"You will find your host and hostess," said the gentleman, "certainly of
a different order from the persons with whom it is easy to see you
have associated; but, at your happy age, a year or two may be very well
thrown away upon observing the manners and customs of those whom, in
later life, you may often be called upon to conciliate or perhaps to
control. That man will never be a perfect gentleman who lives only with
gentlemen. To be a man of the world, we must view that world in every
grade and in every perspective. In short, the most practical art of
wisdom is that which extracts from things the very quality they least
appear to possess; and the actor in the world, like the actor on the
stage, should find 'a basket-hilted sword very convenient to carry milk
in.' [See the witty inventory of a player's goods in the "Tatler."] As
for me, I have survived my relations and friends. I cannot keep late
hours, nor adhere to the unhealthy customs of good society; nor do
I think that, to a man of my age and habits, any remuneration would
adequately repay the sacrifice of health or comfort. I am, therefore,
well content to sink into a hermitage in an obscure corner of this great
town, and only occasionally to revive my 'past remembrances of higher
state,' by admitting a few old acquaintances to drink my bachelor's tea
and talk over the news of the day. Hence, you see, Mr. Linden, I pick
up two or three novel anecdotes of state and scandal, and maintain my
importance at Copperas Bower by retailing them second-hand. Now that
you are one of the inmates of that abode, I shall be more frequently its
guest. By the by, I will let you into a secret: know that I am somewhat
a lover of the marvellous, and like to indulge a little embellishing
exaggeration in any place where there is no chance of finding me
out. Mind, therefore, my dear Mr. Linden, that you take no ungenerous
advantage of this confession; but suffer me, now and then, to tell my
stories my own way, even when you think truth would require me to tell
them in another."

"Certainly," said Clarence, laughing; "let us make an agreement: you
shall tell your stories as you please, if you will grant me the same
liberty in paying my compliments; and if I laugh aloud at the stories,
you shall promise me not to laugh aloud at the compliments."

"It is a bond