tea,
and his red slice of strong cheese, called of Cheshire by the reckless
butter-man, for supper.

He knew that both Dahlia and Rhoda must have told the farmer that he
was not high up in Boyne's Bank, and it fretted him to think that the
mysterious respect entertained for his wealth by the farmer, which
delighted him with a novel emotion, might be dashed by what the farmer
would behold.

During his last visit to the farm, Anthony had talked of the Funds more
suggestively than usual. He had alluded to his own dealings in them, and
to what he would do and would not do under certain contingencies; thus
shadowing out, dimly luminous and immense, what he could do, if his
sagacity prompted the adventure. The farmer had listened through the
buzzing of his uncertain grief, only sighing for answer. "If ever you
come up to London, brother William John," said Anthony, "you mind you go
about arm-in-arm with me, or you'll be judging by appearances, and says
you, 'Lor', what a thousander fellow this is!' and 'What a millioner
fellow that is!' You'll be giving your millions and your thousands
to the wrong people, when they haven't got a penny. All London 'll be
topsy-turvy to you, unless you've got a guide, and he'll show you a
shabby-coated, head-in-the-gutter old man 'll buy up the lot. Everybody
that doesn't know him says--look at him! but they that knows him--hats
off, I can tell you. And talk about lords! We don't mind their coming
into the city, but they know the scent of cash. I've had a lord take off
his hat to me. It's a fact, I have."

In spite of the caution Anthony had impressed upon his country relative,
that he should not judge by appearances, he was nevertheless under an
apprehension that the farmer's opinion of him, and the luxurious, almost
voluptuous, enjoyment he had of it, were in peril. When he had purchased
the well-probed fat goose, the shrimps, and the cheese, he was only
half-satisfied. His ideas shot boldly at a bottle of wine, and he
employed a summer-lighted evening in going a round of wine-merchants'
placards, and looking out for the cheapest bottle he could buy. And
he would have bought one--he had sealing-wax of his own and could have
stamped it with the office-stamp of Boyne's Bank for that matter, to
make it as dignified and costly as the vaunted red seals and green seals
of the placards--he would have bought one, had he not, by one of his
lucky mental illuminations, recollected that it was withi