ABYSSUS ABYSSUM VOCAT.

Another face, disappeared—­Tom-Jim-Jack’s.  Suddenly he ceased to frequent the Tadcaster Inn.

Persons so situated as to be able to observe other phases of fashionable life in London, might have seen that about this time the Weekly Gazette, between two extracts from parish registers, announced the departure of Lord David Dirry-Moir, by order of her Majesty, to take command of his frigate in the white squadron then cruising off the coast of Holland.

Ursus, perceiving that Tom-Jim-Jack did not return, was troubled by his absence.  He had not seen Tom-Jim-Jack since the day on which he had driven off in the same carriage with the lady of the gold piece.  It was, indeed, an enigma who this Tom-Jim-Jack could be, who carried off duchesses under his arm.  What an interesting investigation!  What questions to propound!  What things to be said.  Therefore Ursus said not a word.

Ursus, who had had experience, knew the smart caused by rash curiosity.  Curiosity ought always to be proportioned to the curious.  By listening, we risk our ear; by watching, we risk our eye.  Prudent people neither hear nor see.  Tom-Jim-Jack had got into a princely carriage.  The tavern-keeper had seen him.  It appeared so extraordinary that the sailor should sit by the lady that it made Ursus circumspect.  The caprices of those in high life ought to be sacred to the lower orders.  The reptiles called the poor had best squat in their holes when they see anything out of the way.  Quiescence is a power.  Shut your eyes, if you have not the luck to be blind; stop up your ears, if you have not the good fortune to be deaf; paralyze your tongue, if you have not the perfection of being mute.  The great do what they like, the little what they can.  Let the unknown pass unnoticed.  Do not importune mythology.  Do not interrogate appearances.  Have a profound respect for idols.  Do not let us direct our gossiping towards the lessenings or increasings which take place in superior regions, of the motives of which we are ignorant.  Such things are mostly optical delusions to us inferior creatures.  Metamorphoses are the business of the gods:  the transformations and the contingent disorders of great persons who float above us are clouds impossible to comprehend and perilous to study.  Too much attention irritates the Olympians engaged in their gyrations of amusement or fancy; and a thunderbolt may teach you that the bull you are too curiously examining is Jupiter.  Do not lift the folds of the stone-coloured mantles of those terrible powers.  Indifference is intelligence.  Do not stir, and you will be safe.  Feign death, and they will not kill you.  Therein lies the wisdom of the insect.  Ursus practised it.

The tavern-keeper, who was puzzled as well, questioned Ursus one day.

“Do you observe that Tom-Jim-Jack never comes here now!”

“Indeed!” said Ursus.  “I have not remarked it.”