“I shall give it up, at any rate,” he said, after a pause.

“Of course you’re a young man, sir.”

“No, I’m not.”

“That is, not exactly young,”

“You’re an old fool to tell such lies!”

“Of course I’m an old fool; but I endeavor to be veracious.  I never didn’t take a shilling as were yours, nor a shilling’s worth, all the years I have known you, Mr. Prosper.”

“What has that to do with it?  I’m not a young man.”

“What am I to say, sir?  Shall I say as you are middle-aged?”

“The truth is, Matthew, I’m worn out.”

“Then I wouldn’t think of taking a wife.”

“Troubles have been too heavy for me to bear.  I don’t think I was intended to bear trouble.”

“‘Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,’” said Matthew.

“I suppose so.  But one man’s luck is harder than another’s.  They’ve been too many for me, and I feel that I’m sinking under them.  It’s no good my thinking of marrying now.”

“That’s what I was coming to when you said I was an old fool.  Of course I am an old fool.”

“Do have done with it!  Mr. Harry hasn’t been exactly what he ought to have been to me.”

“He’s a very comely young gentleman.”

“What has comely to do with it?”

“Them as is plain-featured is more likely to stay at home and be quiet.  You couldn’t expect one as is so handsome to stay at Buston and hear sermons.”

“I don’t expect him to be knocking men about in the streets at midnight.”

“It ain’t that, sir.”

“I say it is that!”

“Very well, sir.  Only we’ve all heard down-stairs as Mr. Harry wasn’t him as struck the first blow.  It was all about a young lady.”

“I know what it was about.”

“A young lady as is a young lady.”—­This was felt to the quick by Mr. Prosper, in regard to the gin-drinking Miss Puffle and the brewer-bred Miss Thoroughbung; but as he was beginning to think that the continuation of the family of the Prospers must depend on the marriage which Harry might make, he passed over the slur upon himself for the sake of the praise given to the future mother of the Prospers.—­“And when a young gentleman has set his heart on a young lady he’s not going to be braggydoshoed out of it.”

“Captain Scarborough knew her first.”

“First come first served isn’t always the way with lovers.  Mr. Harry was the conquering hero.  ‘Weni, widi, wici.’”

“Halloo, Matthew!”

“Them’s the words as they say a young gentleman ought to use when he’s got the better of a young lady’s affections; and I dare say they’re the very words as put the captain into such a towering passion.  I can understand how it happened, just as if I saw it.”

“But he went away, and left him bleeding and speechless.”

“He’d knocked his weni, widi, wici out of him, I guess!  I think, Mr. Prosper, you should forgive him.”  Mr. Prosper had thought so too, but had hardly known how to express himself after his second burst of anger.  But he was at the present ill and weak, and was anxious to have some one near to him who should be more like a silk purse than his butler, Matthew.  “Suppose you was to send for him, sir.”