ime before our joyful era of universal equality. Yet he
never cast a shade of blame upon his father.

The hours moved on, and he found himself staring at his small candle,
which struggled more and more faintly with the morning light, like his
own flickering ambition against the facts of life.

CHAPTER VIII. INTRODUCES AN ECCENTRIC

At the Aurora--one of those rare antiquated taverns, smelling of
comfortable time and solid English fare, that had sprung up in the great
coffee days, when taverns were clubs, and had since subsisted on the
attachment of steady bachelor Templars there had been dismay, and even
sorrow, for a month. The most constant patron of the establishment--an
old gentleman who had dined there for seven-and-twenty years, four days
in the week, off dishes dedicated to the particular days, and had
grown grey with the landlady, the cook, and the head-waiter--this old
gentleman had abruptly withheld his presence. Though his name, his
residence, his occupation, were things only to be speculated on at the
Aurora, he was very well known there, and as men are best to be known:
that is to say, by their habits. Some affection for him also was felt.
The landlady looked on him as a part of the house. The cook and the
waiter were accustomed to receive acceptable compliments from him
monthly. His precise words, his regular ancient jokes, his pint of
Madeira and after-pint of Port, his antique bow to the landlady, passing
out and in, his method of spreading his table-napkin on his lap and
looking up at the ceiling ere he fell to, and how he talked to himself
during the repast, and indulged in short chuckles, and the one look of
perfect felicity that played over his features when he had taken his
first sip of Port--these were matters it pained them at the Aurora to
have to remember.

For three weeks the resolution not to regard him as of the past was
general. The Aurora was the old gentleman's home. Men do not play
truant from home at sixty years of age. He must, therefore, be seriously
indisposed. The kind heart of the landlady fretted to think he might
have no soul to nurse and care for him; but she kept his corner near the
fire-place vacant, and took care that his pint of Madeira was there.
The belief was gaining ground that he had gone, and that nothing but
his ghost would ever sit there again. Still the melancholy ceremony
continued: for the landlady was not without a secret hope, that in spite
of his reser