Aunt Becky led him a little walk twice or thrice up and down.  She seemed grave, earnest, and lofty, and he grinned and chatted after his wont energetically, to stout Captain Cluffe’s considerable uneasiness and mortification.  He had seen Dangerfield the day before, through his field-glass, from the high wooded grounds in the park, across the river, walk slowly for a good while under the poplars in the meadow at Belmont, beside Aunt Becky, in high chat; and there was something particular and earnest in their manner, which made him uncomfortable then.  And fat Captain Cluffe’s gall rose and nearly choked him, and; he cursed Dangerfield in the bottom of his corpulent, greedy soul, and wondered what fiend had sent that scheming old land-agent three hundred miles out of his way, on purpose to interfere with his little interests, as if there were not plenty of—­of—­well!—­rich old women—­in London.  And he bethought him of the price of the cockatoo and the probable cost of the pelican, rejoinders to Dangerfield’s contributions to Aunt Rebecca’s menagerie, for those birds were not to be had for nothing; and Cluffe, who loved money as well, at least, as any man in his Majesty’s service, would have seen the two tribes as extinct as the dodo, before he would have expended sixpence upon such tom-foolery, had it not been for Dangerfield’s investments in animated nature.  ’The hound! as if two could not play at that game.’  But he had an uneasy and bitter presentiment that they were birds of paradise, and fifty other cursed birds beside, and that in this costly competition Dangerfield could take a flight beyond and above him; and he thought of the flagitious waste of money, and cursed him for a fool again.  Aunt Becky had said, he thought, something in which ‘to-morrow’ occurred, on taking leave of Dangerfield.  ‘To-morrow!’ ’What to-morrow?  She spoke low and confidentially, and seemed excited and a little flushed, and very distrait when she came back.  Altogether, he felt as if Aunt Rebecca was slipping through his fingers, and would have liked to take that selfish old puppy, Dangerfield, by the neck and drown him out of hand in the river.  But, notwithstanding the state of his temper, he knew it might be his only chance to shine pre-eminently at that moment in amiability, wit, grace, and gallantry, and, though it was up-hill work, he did labour uncommonly.

When Mr. Dangerfield’s spectacles gleamed through the crowd upon Dr. Sturk, who was thinking of other things beside the music, the angler walked round forthwith, and accosted that universal genius.  Mrs. Sturk felt the doctor’s arm, on which she leaned, vibrate for a second with a slight thrill—­an evidence in that hard, fibrous limb of what she used to call ’a start’—­and she heard Dangerfield’s voice over his shoulder.  And the surgeon and the grand vizier were soon deep in talk, and Sturk brightened up, and looked eager and sagacious, and important, and became very voluble and impressive,