to
be for that fiery particle which is crackling and hissing under the
boiler! It helps us on a fraction of an inch from Vauxhall to Putney?" Not
a bit of it. Ten to one but he is saying--"Not sixteen miles an hour! What
the deuce is the matter with the stoker?"

Look at our friend Audley Egerton. You have just had a glimpse of the real
being that struggles under the huge copper; you have heard the hollow
sound of the rich man's coffers under the tap of Baron Levy's friendly
knuckle--heard the strong man's heart give out its dull warning sound to
the scientific ear of Dr. F----. And away once more vanishes the separate
existence, lost again in the flame that heats the boiler, and the smoke
that curls into air from the grimy furnace.

Look to it, O Public Man, whoever thou art, and whatsoever thy degree--see
if thou canst not compound matters, so as to keep a little nook apart for
thy private life; that is, for _thyself_! Let the great Popkins Question
not absorb wholly the individual soul of thee, as Smith or Johnson. Don't
so entirely consume thyself under that insatiable boiler, that when thy
poor little monad rushes out from the sooty furnace, and arrives at the
stars, thou mayest find no vocation for thee there, and feel as if thou
hadst nothing to do amidst the still splendors of the Infinite. I don't
deny to thee the uses of "Public Life;" I grant that it is much to have
helped to carry that great Popkins Question; but Private Life, my friend,
is the life of thy private soul; and there may be matters concerned with
that which, on consideration, thou mayest allow, can not be wholly mixed
up with the great Popkins Question--and were not finally settled when thou
didst exclaim--"I have not lived in vain--the Popkins Question is carried at
last!" O immortal soul, for one quarter of an hour _per diem_--de-Popkinize
thine immortality!

Chapter II.

It had not been without much persuasion on the part of Jackeymo, that
Riccabocca had consented to settle himself in the house which Randal had
recommended to him. Not that the exile conceived any suspicion of the
young man beyond that which he might have shared with Jackeymo, viz., that
Randal's interest in the father was increased by a very natural and
excusable admiration of the daughter. But the Italian had the pride common
to misfortune--he did not like to be indebted to others, and he shrank from
the pity of those to whom it was known that he had held a highe