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, _the right use of reason_) is not a practical art. No one regards it in actual life; observe, therefore, folks on all hands constantly acting like Tittlebat Titmouse in the case before us. His _conclusion_ was--that he had become the certain master of ten thousand a-year; his _premises_ were--what the reader has seen. I do not, however, mean to say, that if the reader be a youth hot from Oxford, he may not be able to prove, by a very refined and ingenious argument, that Titmouse was, in what he did above, a fine natural logician; for I recollect that some great philosopher hath demonstrated, by a famous argument, that there is NOTHING ANYWHERE: and no one that I have heard of, hath ever been able to prove the contrary. By six o'clock the next morning, Titmouse had, with his own hand, dropped his answer into the letter-box upon the door of Mr. Gammon's chambers in Thavies' Inn; in which answer he had, with numerous expressions of profound respect and gratitude, accepted Mr. Gammon's polite invitation. A very happy man felt Titmouse as he returned to Oxford Street; entering Messrs. Tag-rag's premises with alacrity, just as they were being opened, and volunteering his assistance in numerous things beyond his usual province, with singular briskness and energy; as if conscious that by doing so he was greatly gratifying Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, whose wishes upon the subject he knew. He displayed such unwonted cheerfulness and patient good-nature throughout the day, that one of his companions, a serious youth, in a white neckerchief, black clothes, and with a blessed countenance--the only professing pious person in the establishment--took an occasion to ask him, in a mysterious whisper, "whether he had not got _converted_:" and whether he would, at six o'clock in the morning, accompany the speaker to a room in the neighborhood, where he (the youth aforesaid) was going to conduct an exhortation and prayer meeting! Titmouse refused--but not without a few qualms; for luck certainly seemed to be smiling on him, and he felt that he ought to be grateful for it; but then, he at length reflected, the proper place for that sort of thing would be a regular _church_--to which he accordingly resolved to go. This change of manners Tag-rag, however, looked upon as assumed only to affront _him_; seeing nothing but impertinence and defiance in all that Titmouse did--as if the nearer Titmouse got to the end of his bondage--_i. e._ th
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