footmen minister to you your mutton-chops. They come and lay
the cloth presently, wide as the main-sheet of some tall ammiral. A
pile of newspapers and letters for the master of the house; the Newcome
Sentinel, old county paper, moderate conservative, in which our worthy
townsman and member is praised, his benefactions are recorded, and his
speeches given at full length; the Newcome Independent, in which our
precious member is weekly described as a ninny, and informed almost
every Thursday morning that he is a bloated aristocrat, as he munches
his dry toast. Heaps of letters, county papers, Times and Morning Herald
for Sir Brian Newcome; little heaps of letters (dinner and soiree cards
most of these) and Morning Post for Mr. Barnes. Punctually as eight
o'clock strikes, that young gentleman comes to breakfast; his father
will lie yet for another hour; the Baronet's prodigious labours in the
House of Commons keeping him frequently out of bed till sunrise.

As his cousin entered the room, Clive turned very red, and perhaps a
faint blush might appear on Barnes's pallid countenance. He came in, a
handkerchief in one hand, a pamphlet in the other, and both hands being
thus engaged, he could offer neither to his kinsmen.

"You are come to breakfast, I hope," he said--calling it "weakfast," and
pronouncing the words with a most languid drawl--"or, perhaps, you
want to see my father? He is never out of his room till half-past nine.
Harper, did Sir Brian come in last night before or after me?" Harper,
the butler, thinks Sir Brian came in after Mr. Barnes.

When that functionary had quitted the room, Barnes turned round to his
uncle in a candid, smiling way, and said, "The fact is, sir, I don't
know when I came home myself very distinctly, and can't, of course, tell
about my father. Generally, you know, there are two candles left in the
hall, you know; and if there are two, you know, I know of course that
my father is still at the House. But last night, after that capital song
you sang, hang me if I know what happened to me. I beg your pardon, sir,
I'm shocked at having been so overtaken. Such a confounded thing doesn't
happen to me once in ten years. I do trust I didn't do anything rude to
anybody, for I thought some of your friends the pleasantest fellows I
ever met in my life; and as for the claret, 'gad, as if I hadn't had
enough after dinner, I brought a quantity of it away with me on my
shirt-front and waistcoat!"

"I be