ast, and the lady sat down moody and
weary, looking at her dark lord engaged in a deed of violence with a
bottle of soda-water as though he were wringing the neck of some unlucky
creature and pouring its blood down his throat. As he wiped his dripping
whiskers in an ogreish way, he met her eyes, and pausing, said, with no
very gentle voice:

'Well?'

'Was such an absolute Booby necessary to the purpose?'

'I know what I am doing. He is no such dolt as you suppose.'

'A genius, perhaps?'

'You sneer, perhaps; and you take a lofty air upon yourself perhaps!
But I tell you this:--when that young fellow's interest is concerned,
he holds as tight as a horse-leech. When money is in question with that
young fellow, he is a match for the Devil.'

'Is he a match for you?'

'He is. Almost as good a one as you thought me for you. He has no
quality of youth in him, but such as you have seen to-day. Touch him
upon money, and you touch no booby then. He really is a dolt, I suppose,
in other things; but it answers his one purpose very well.'

'Has she money in her own right in any case?'

'Ay! she has money in her own right in any case. You have done so well
to-day, Sophronia, that I answer the question, though you know I object
to any such questions. You have done so well to-day, Sophronia, that you
must be tired. Get to bed.'

Chapter 5

MERCURY PROMPTING

Fledgeby deserved Mr Alfred Lammle's eulogium. He was the meanest
cur existing, with a single pair of legs. And instinct (a word we all
clearly understand) going largely on four legs, and reason always on
two, meanness on four legs never attains the perfection of meanness on
two.

The father of this young gentleman had been a money-lender, who
had transacted professional business with the mother of this
young gentleman, when he, the latter, was waiting in the vast dark
ante-chambers of the present world to be born. The lady, a widow, being
unable to pay the money-lender, married him; and in due course, Fledgeby
was summoned out of the vast dark ante-chambers to come and be presented
to the Registrar-General. Rather a curious speculation how Fledgeby
would otherwise have disposed of his leisure until Doomsday.

Fledgeby's mother offended her family by marrying Fledgeby's father. It
is one of the easiest achievements in life to offend your family when
your family want to get rid of you. Fledgeby's mother's family had
been very much offended with her for bein