Manly it may have been, but the touching part of it was a feature missed in Mr. Andrew’s hands.  At any rate, it did not appear favourably to impress Tom, whose chin had gathered its ominous puckers, as he inquired: 

‘What’s the trade? he don’t say.’

Andrew added, with a wave of the hand:  ’Out of a sort of feeling for his sisters—­I like him for it.  Now what I want to ask you, Tom, is, whether we can’t assist him in some way!  Why couldn’t we take him into our office, and fix him there, eh?  If he works well—­we’re both getting old, and my brats are chicks—­we might, by-and-by, give him a share.’

’Make a brewer of him?  Ha! there’d be another mighty sacrifice for his pride!’

‘Come, come, Tom,’ said Andrew, ’he’s my wife’s brother, and I’m yours; and—­there, you know what women are.  They like to preserve appearances:  we ought to consider them.’

‘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!’