rd relative to his rearing, and especially to the mode by which he
had acquired his education; and Leonard, confirmed in the idea that he
was replying to a kinsman, answered frankly.

Richard did not think it strange that Leonard should have acquired so
much instruction with so little direct tuition. Richard Avenel himself
had been tutor to himself. He had lived too long with our go-ahead
brethren who stride the world on the other side the Atlantic with
the seven-leagued boots of the Giant-killer, not to have caught their
glorious fever for reading. But it was for a reading wholly different
from that which was familiar to Leonard. The books he read must be new;
to read old books would have seemed to him going back in the world.
He fancied that new books necessarily contained new ideas,--a common
mistake,--and our lucky adventurer was the man of his day.

Tired with talking, he at length chucked the book he had run through to
Leonard, and taking out a pocket-book and pencil, amused himself with
calculations on some detail of his business, after which he fell into an
absorbed train of thought, part pecuniary, part ambitious.

Leonard found the book interesting: it was one of the numerous works,
half-statistic, half-declamatory, relating to the condition of the
working classes, which peculiarly distinguish our century, and ought to
bind together rich and poor, by proving the grave attention which modern
society bestows upon all that can affect the welfare of the last.

"Dull stuff! theory! claptrap!" said Richard, rousing himself from his
revery at last; "it can't interest you."

"All books interest me, I think," said Leonard, "and this especially;
for it relates to the working class, and I am one of them."

"You were yesterday, but you mayn't be to-morrow," answered Richard,
good-humouredly, and patting him on the shoulder. "You see, my lad, that
it is the middle class which ought to govern the country. What the book
says about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good; but the
man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants to regulate the
number of hours a free-born boy should work at a factory,--only ten
hours a day--pooh! and so lose two hours to the nation! Labour is
wealth; and if we could get men to work twenty-four hours a day,
we should be just twice as rich. If the march of civilization is to
proceed," continued Richard, loftily, "men, and boys too, must not lie
a bed doing nothing, all night, si