He did it to vindicate the ties of blood against accidents of position.  Was he justified?  I am sufficiently wise to ask my own sex alone.

On the other side, be it said (since in our modern days every hero must have his weak heel), that now he had gone this distance it was difficult to recede.  It would be no laughing matter to tell his solemn Harriet that he had been playing her a little practical joke.  His temptations to give it up were incessant and most agitating; but if to advance seemed terrific, there was, in stopping short, an awfulness so overwhelming that Andrew abandoned himself to the current, his real dismay adding to his acting powers.

The worst was, that the joke was no longer his:  it was Old Tom’s.  He discovered that he was in Old Tom’s hands completely.  Andrew had thought that he would just frighten the women a bit, get them down to Lymport for a week or so, and then announce that matters were not so bad with the Brewery as he had feared; concluding the farce with a few domestic fireworks.  Conceive his dismay when he entered the house, to find there a man in possession.

Andrew flew into such a rage that he committed an assault on the man.  So ungovernable was his passion, that for some minutes Harriet’s measured voice summoned him from over the banisters above, quite in vain.  The miserable Englishman refused to be taught that his house had ceased to be his castle.  It was something beyond a joke, this!  The intruder, perfectly docile, seeing that by accurate calculation every shake he got involved a bottle of wine for him, and ultimate compensation probably to the amount of a couple of sovereigns, allowed himself to be lugged up stairs, in default of summary ejection on the point of Andrew’s toe into the street.  There he was faced to the lady of the house, who apologized to him, and requested her husband to state what had made him guilty of this indecent behaviour.  The man showed his papers.  They were quite in order.  ’At the suit of Messrs. Grist.’

‘My own lawyers!’ cried Andrew, smacking his forehead; and Old Tom’s devilry flashed on him at once.  He sank into a chair.

‘Why did you bring this person up here?’ said Harriet, like a speaking statue.

‘My dear!’ Andrew answered, and spread out his hand, and waggled his head; ‘My—­please!—­I—­I don’t know.  We all want exercise.’

The man laughed, which was kindly of him, but offensive to Mrs. Cogglesby, who gave Andrew a glance which was full payment for his imbecile pleasantry, and promised more.

With a hospitable inquiry as to the condition of his appetite, and a request that he would be pleased to satisfy it to the full, the man was dismissed:  whereat, as one delivered of noxious presences, the Countess rustled into sight.  Not noticing Andrew, she lisped to Harriet:  ’Misfortunes are sometimes no curses!  I bless the catarrh that has confined Silva to his chamber, and saved him from a bestial exhibition.’