an outburst of honest indignation; nor will he suffer you to take Gruyere cheese, nor port with your Stilton.  The consequence is, that the next morning you feel as lively as though you had not feasted on the previous evening, and convinced that you made a good investment of your half-guinea in securing his services.  If there was a feeder at Crompton,” concluded the old gourmand, sighing, and with a hypocritical look, “it would be a boon to some of you young fellows, and might produce a healthy and devout old age.”

“That’s a good one!” “Well done, Byam!” “You won’t beat that!” resounded from all sides, for such were the terms in which the gallery at Crompton expressed their approbation, whether of man or beast; but Mr. Frederick Chandos and a few others, inclusive of Mr. Theodore Fane, kept a dignified silence, as over a joke that was beyond their capacities—­they reserved their high approval for “gentlemen’s stories” only.  As for the grim Squire, for whom alone the narrative had been served and garnished, at so very short a notice, he observed upon it, that “when he had used up old Byam’s brains he should now have the less scruple in turning him out-of-doors, inasmuch as it seemed there was a profession in town that was just suited to him.”

How wondrous is the power of naked wealth—­of the mere money!  Simply because he had a large rent-roll, this mad Carew could find not only companions of his own calibre—­reckless good-for-naughts, or dull debauchees—­but could command gray beard experience, wit, the art of pleasing, in one man; and in another (what he was not less destitute of, and needed more), politic management and common-sense.  We do not say, as the Squire himself sometimes did, when in a good-humor with his two satellites, that Parson Whymper and Byam Ryll had more brains in their little fingers than all his other friends had in their whole bodies, but it was certain that, even when drunk, they were wiser than the others when sober; the one had astuteness enough for a great statesman (or what has passed for such in England) to hold the most discordant elements together, and to make what is rotten seem almost sound; and, indeed, without his chaplain’s dextrous skidding, Carew would long ago have irretrievably lost social caste, and dissipated his vast means to the last shilling.  On the other hand, Byam Ryll was gifted with even rarer qualities; he was essentially a man of mark and character, and might have made his fortune in any pursuit by his own wits; but his fortune had been ready-made when he came of age, and he had occupied himself very agreeably instead in getting through it, in which he had quite succeeded.  Parson Whymper, who had never known what it was to have a ten-pound note to call his own, was now no worse off than he.  They would both have frankly owned, had they been asked, that they detested work of any kind.  Yet the chaplain had almost as much business on his hands as the bursar of a great college,