ut a fool in
the salon; and the most consummate men of the world are those who have
considered the least on it.

CHAPTER XXV.

Falstaff. What money is in my purse? Page. Seven groats and two-pence.
--Second Part of Henry IV.

En iterum Crispinus.

The next day a note was brought me, which had been sent to my former
lodgings in the Hotel de Paris: it was from Thornton.

"My dear Sir," (it began)

"I am very sorry that particular business will prevent me the pleasure
of seeing you at my rooms on Sunday. I hope to be more fortunate some
other day. I should like much to introduce you, the first opportunity,
to my friends in the Rue Gretry, for I like obliging my countrymen. I
am sure, if you were to go there, you would cut and come again--one
shoulder of mutton drives down another.

"I beg you to accept my repeated excuses, and remain,

"Dear Sir,

"Your very obedient servant,

"Thomas Thornton.

"Rue St. Dominique,

"Friday Morning."

This letter produced in me many and manifold cogitations. What could
possibly have induced Mr. Tom Thornton, rogue as he was, to postpone
thus of his own accord, the plucking of a pigeon, which he had such good
reason to believe he had entrapped? There was evidently no longer the
same avidity to cultivate my acquaintance as before; in putting off
our appointment with so little ceremony, he did not even fix a day
for another. What had altered his original designs towards me? for if
Vincent's account was true, it was natural to suppose that he wished to
profit by any acquaintance he might form with me, and therefore such an
acquaintance his own interests would induce him to continue and confirm.

Either, then, he no longer had the same necessity for a dupe, or he no
longer imagined I should become one. Yet neither of these suppositions
was probable. It was not likely that he should grow suddenly honest,
or suddenly rich: nor had I, on the other hand, given him any reason to
suppose I was a jot more wary than any other individual he might have
imposed upon. On the contrary, I had appeared to seek his acquaintance
with an eagerness which said but little for my knowledge of the world.
The more I reflected, the more I should have been puzzled, had I not
connected his present backwardness with his acquaintance with the
stranger, whom he termed Warburton. It is true, that I had no reason to
suppose so: it was a conjecture wholly unsupported, and, indeed, against
my better