“I thank you, Carnaby,” returned the other, taking the offered seat, with an air of easy superiority.  “You judge with your usual discretion, as respects the place, though I doubt the prudence of seeing him at all.  Has the man come?”

“Doubtless, my lord; he would hardly presume to keep your lordship waiting, and much less would I countenance him in so gross a disrespect.  He will be most happy to wait on you, my lord, whenever your lordship shall please.”

“Let him wait:  there is no necessity for haste.  He has probably communicated some of the objects of this extraordinary call on my time, Carnaby; and you can break them, in the intervening moments.”

“I am sorry to say, my lord, that the fellow is as obstinate as a mule.  I felt the impropriety of introducing him, personally, to your lordship; but as he insisted he had affairs that would deeply interest you, my lord, I could not take upon me to say, what would be agreeable to your lordship, or what not; and so I was bold enough to write the note.”

“And a very properly expressed note it was, Master Carnaby.  I have not received a better worded communication, since my arrival in this colony.”

“I am sure the approbation of your lordship might justly make any man proud!  It is the ambition of my life, my lord, to do the duties of my station in a proper manner, and to treat all above me with a suitable respect, my lord, and all below me as in reason bound.  If I might presume to think in such a matter, my lord, I should say, that these colonists are no great judges of propriety, in their correspondence, or indeed in any thing else.”

The noble visiter shrugged his shoulder, and threw an expression into his look, that encouraged the retailer to proceed.

“It is just what I think myself, my lord,” he continued, simpering; “but then,” he added, with a condoling and patronizing air, “how should they know any better?  England is but an island, after all; and the whole world cannot be born and educated on the same bit of earth.”

“’Twould be inconvenient, Carnaby, if it led to no other unpleasant consequence.”

“Almost, word for word, what I said to Mrs. Carnaby myself, no later than yesterday, my lord, only vastly better expressed.  ’Twould be inconvenient, said I, Mrs. Carnaby, to take in the other lodger, for every body cannot live in the same house; which covers, as it were, the ground taken in your lordship’s sentiment.  I ought to add, in behalf of the poor woman, that she expressed, on the same occasion, strong regrets that it is reported your lordship will be likely to quit us soon, on your return to old England.”

“That is really a subject on which there is more cause to rejoice than to weep.  This imprisoning, or placing within limits, so near a relative of the crown, is an affair that must have unpleasant consequences, and which offends sadly against all propriety.”

“It is awful, my lord!  If it be not sacrilege by the law, the greater the shame of the opposition in Parliament, who defeat so many other wholesome regulations, intended for the good of the subject.”