‘The poet is perhaps, on the whole, more exhilarating than the alderman,’ he said.

These were the respective names given by him to the empty purse and the full purse.  We vowed we preferred the poet.

‘Ay,’ said he, ’but for all that the alderman is lighter on his feet:  I back him to be across the Channel first.  The object of my instructions to you will be lost, Richie, if I find you despising the Alderman’s Pegasus.  On money you mount.  We are literally chained here, you know, there is no doubt about it; and we are adding a nail to our fetters daily.  True, you are accomplishing the Parisian accent.  Paris has also this immense advantage over all other cities:  ’tis the central hotel on the high-road of civilization.  In Paris you meet your friends to a certainty; it catches them every one in turn; so now we must abroad early and late, and cut for trumps.’  A meeting with a friend of my father, Mr. Monterez Williams, was the result of our resolute adoption of this system.  He helped us on to Boulogne, where my father met another friend, to whom he gave so sumptuous a dinner that we had not money enough to pay the hotel bill.

‘Now observe the inconvenience of leaving Paris,’ said he.  ’Ten to one we shall have to return.  We will try a week’s whistling on the jetty; and if no luck comes, and you will admit, Richie—­Mr. Temple, I call your attention to it—­that luck will scarcely come in profuse expedition through the narrow neck of a solitary seaport, why, we must return to Paris.’

I proposed to write to my aunt Dorothy for money, but he would not hear of that.  After two or three days of whistling, I saw my old friend, Mr. Bannerbridge, step out of the packetboat.  On condition of my writing to my aunt to say that I was coming home, he advanced me the sum we were in need of, grudgingly though, and with the prediction that we should break down again, which was verified.  It occurred only a stage from Riversley, where my grandfather’s name was good as coin of the realm.  Besides, my father remained at the inn to guarantee the payment of the bill, while Temple and I pushed on in a fly with the two dozen of Hock.  It could hardly be called a break-down, but my father was not unwilling for me to regard it in that light.  Among his parting remarks was an impressive adjuration to me to cultivate the squire’s attachment at all costs.

‘Do this,’ he said, ’and I shall know that the lesson I have taught you on your journey homeward has not been thrown away.  My darling boy! my curse through life has been that the sense of weight in money is a sense I am and was born utterly a stranger to.  The consequence is, my grandest edifices fall; there is no foundation for them.  Not that I am worse, understand me, than under a temporary cloud, and the blessing of heaven has endowed me with a magnificent constitution.  Heaven forefend that I should groan for myself, or you for me!  But digest what you have learnt, Richie; press nothing on the squire; be guided by the advice of that esteemed and admirable woman, your aunt Dorothy.  And, by the way, you may tell her confidentially of the progress of your friendship with the Princess Ottilia.  Here I shall employ my hours in a tranquil study of nature until I see you.’  Thus he sped me forward.