o less by the
fascination of his manners than by his romantic history...'

'--has very soon succeeded in making himself the talk of the town...'

'--has latterly become the theme of our tea-tables...'

'--which is always the adventurer's privilege...'

'--through no fault of his own...'

'--That we may throw light on the blushing aspirations of a crow-sconced
Cupid, it will be as well to recall the antecedents of this (if no
worse) preposterous imitation buck of the old school...'

'--Suffice it, without seeking to draw the veil from those affecting
chapters of his earlier career which kindled for him the enthusiastic
sympathy of all classes of his countrymen, that he is not yet free from
a tender form of persecution...'

'--We think we are justified in entitling him the Perkin Warbeck of
society...'

'--Reference might be made to mythological heroes...'

Hereat I cried out mercy.

Captain DeWitt (stretched nursing a leg) removed his silk handkerchief
from his face to murmur,

'The bass stedfastly drowns the treble, if this is meant for harmony.'

My father rang up the landlord, and said to him,

'The choicest of your cellar at dinner to-day, Mr. Lumley; and, mind
you, I am your guest, and I exercise my right of compelling you to sit
down with us and assist in consuming a doubtful quality of wine. We dine
four. Lay for five, if your conscience is bad, and I excuse you.'

The man smirked. He ventured to say he had never been so tempted to
supply an inferior article.

My father smiled on him.

'You invite our editorial advocate?' said Captain DeWitt.

'Our adversary,' said my father.

I protested I would not sit at table with him. But he assured me he
believed his advocate and his adversary to be one and the same, and
referred me to the collated sentences.

'The man must earn his bread, Richie, boy! To tell truth, it is the
advocate I wish to rebuke, and to praise the adversary. It will confound
him.'

'It does me,' said DeWitt.

'You perceive, Jorian, a policy in dining these men of the Press now and
occasionally, considering their growing power, do you not?'

'Ay, ay! it's a great gossiping machine, mon Roy. I prefer to let it
spout.'

'I crave your permission to invite him in complimentary terms, cousin
Jorian. He is in the town; remember, it is for the good of the nation
that he and his like should have the opportunity of studying good
society. As to myself personally, I give him carte bl