‘Preserve appearances!’ echoed Tom:  ’ha! who’ll do that for them better than a tailor?’

Andrew was an impatient little man, fitter for a kind action than to plead a cause.  Jeering jarred on him; and from the moment his brother began it, he was of small service to Evan.  He flung back against the partition of the compound, rattling it to the disturbance of many a quiet digestion.

‘Tom,’ he cried, ‘I believe you’re a screw!’

‘Never said I wasn’t,’ rejoined Tom, as he finished his glass.  ’I ’m a bachelor, and a person—­you’re married, and an object.  I won’t have the tailor’s family at my coat-tails.’

Do you mean to say, Tom, you don’t like the young fellow?  The Countess says he’s half engaged to an heiress; and he has a chance of appointments —­of course, nothing may come of them.  But do you mean to say, you don’t like him for what he has done?’

Tom made his jaw disagreeably prominent. ’’Fraid I’m guilty of that crime.’

‘And you that swear at people pretending to be above their station!’ exclaimed Andrew.  ’I shall get in a passion.  I can’t stand this.  Here, waiter! what have I to pay?’

‘Go,’ cried the time-honoured guest of the Aurora to Jonathan advancing.

Andrew pressed the very roots of his hair back from his red forehead, and sat upright and resolute, glancing at Tom.  And now ensued a curious scene of family blood.  For no sooner did elderly Tom observe this bantam-like demeanour of his brother, than he ruffled his feathers likewise, and looked down on him, agitating his wig over a prodigious frown.  Whereof came the following sharp colloquy; Andrew beginning: 

I ‘ll pay off the debts out of my own pocket.’

‘You can make a greater fool of yourself, then?’

‘He shan’t be a tailor!’

‘He shan’t be a brewer!’

‘I say he shall live like a gentleman!’

‘I say he shall squat like a Turk!’

Bang went Andrew’s hand on the table:  ’I ‘ve pledged my word, mind!’

Tom made a counter demonstration:  ‘And I’ll have my way!’

‘Hang it!  I can be as eccentric as you,’ said Andrew.

‘And I as much a donkey as you, if I try hard,’ said Tom.

Something of the cobbler’s stall followed this; till waxing furious, Tom sung out to Jonathan, hovering around them in watchful timidity, ’More Port!’ and the words immediately fell oily on the wrath of the brothers; both commenced wiping their heads with their handkerchiefs the faces of both emerged and met, with a half-laugh:  and, severally determined to keep to what they had spoken, there was a tacit accord between them to drop the subject.

Like sunshine after smart rain, the Port shone on these brothers.  Like a voice from the pastures after the bellowing of the thunder, Andrew’s voice asked:  ’Got rid of that twinge of the gout, Tom?  Did you rub in that ointment?’ while Tom replied:  ’Ay.  How about that rheumatism of yours?  Have you tried that Indy oil?’ receiving a like assurance.