It is better so.  Is it not far more creditable and less ridiculous for two of our reverend seniors, between whom there exists a deadly feud, to comport themselves with decent reserve toward each other, than to go vaporing about on crutches, stamping the foot that is not gouty, and blaspheming in a weak, cracked treble, like Capulet and Montague?  Hot rooms and cold draughts are dangerous, but not so fatal as the Aqua Tofana, and other pleasant beverages more revolting and rapid in their effects.  Could any thing be more harrowing to a well regulated mind than to see, in the midst of a neatly-turned compliment, one’s partner literally look black at one, and expire incontinently in great torments?

It is less romantic, but I prefer to be given an unmedicated rose.  When I win a pair of gloves, it is a satisfaction to me to reflect that in Houbigant or Pivert there is no venom or guile.

All these consoling thoughts, and more, passed through my mind that evening; yet I could not get rid of a strange, indistinct impression that it was only the presence of Livingstone which averted some great danger imminent over his cousin and Forrester.

CHAPTER XIII.

                                “This is all
     The gain we reap, from all the wisdom sown
     Through ages.  Nothing doubted those first sons
     Of time; while we, the schooled of centuries,
     Nothing believe—­”

We were scattered round the smoking-room, about midnight, in different attitudes of repose.  Bruce was of the party, decidedly out of his element.  He did not like tobacco much, and only took a cigar as a sacrifice to the exigencies of the occasion, consuming the same with great toil and exertion of the lungs, and when he removed it from his lips, holding it at arm’s length, like a viper or other venomous beast.

“Charley,” asked Fallowfield, at length, from the depths of his divan, “how is the regiment going on?  Insolvent as ever?”

“More so,” was the reply.  “When I came away they were thinking of framing a L5 note, and hanging it up in the ante-room, to show that we had some money—­just like the man who pitched loaves over the city-walls when they were dying of famine—­but there was a difficulty about procuring one.  However, we have been promised the son of an opulent brewer or distiller (I forget which, but I know he makes something to drink), who is to join before Easter.  Perhaps he may set us afloat again.”

“Yes,” Guy remarked; “fortunately, a martial spirit is abroad in the Third Estate. Walbrook s’en va t’en guerre.  If there is one moneyed man in the lot, it seems sufficient to keep the others going.  I often wonder how you manage; for, to do you justice, you don’t plunder your Croesus.  You deserve statues—­as Sydney Smith would have said—­aeris alieni.”

“I am not the rose, but I have lived with her,” responded Forrester, sententiously.  “That’s the principle of the thing.  When a subaltern arrives laden with gold, the barrack-yard is a perfect garden of Bendemeer to the tradesmen.”