izer."

At six o'clock I received the high honour of an introduction to Mr Young
Mandeville. As I really consider this gentleman one of the most
remarkable personages of the era in which we live, I may perhaps be
excused if I assume the privilege of an acquaintance, and introduce him
also to the reader. The years of Mr Mandeville could hardly have
exceeded thirty. His stature was considerably above the average of
mankind, and would have been greater save for the geometrical curvature
of his lower extremities, which gave him all the appearance of a walking
parenthesis. His hair was black and streaky; his complexion atrabilious;
his voice slightly raucous, like that of a tragedian contending with a
cold. The eye was a very fine one--that is, the right eye--for the other
optic was evidently internally damaged, and shone with an opalescent
lustre. There was a kind of native dignity about the man which impressed
me favourably, notwithstanding the reserved manner in which he
exchanged the preliminary courtesies.

Cutts did the honours of the table with his usual alacrity. The dinner
was a capital one, and the vine not only abundant but unexceptionable.
At first, however, the conversation flowed but languidly. My spirits had
not yet recovered from the appalling intelligence of the morning; nor
could I help reflecting, with a certain uneasiness, upon the reception I
was sure to meet with from certain brethren in the Outer House, to whom,
in a moment of rash confidence, I had entrusted the tale of my dilemma.
I abhor roasting in my own person, and yet I knew I should have enough
of it. Mandeville eat on steadily, like one labouring under the
conviction that he thereby performed a good and meritorious action, and
scorning to mix up extraneous matter with the main object of his
exertions. The Saxon awaited his time, and steadily circulated the
champagne.

We all got more loquacious after the cloth was removed. A good dinner
reconciles one amazingly to the unhappy chances of our lot; and, before
the first bottle was emptied, I had tacitly forgiven every one of the
Provisional Committee of the Slopperton Railway Company, with the
exception of the villainous Glanders, who, for any thing I knew, might,
at that moment, be transatlantically regaling himself at my particular
expense. His guilt was of course inexpiable. Mandeville, having eat like
an ogre, began to drink like a dromedary. Both the dark and the
opalescent eye sparkled w