The secret of Captain Baskelett’s art would seem to be to show the automatic human creature at loggerheads with a necessity that winks at remarkable pretensions, while condemning it perpetually to doll-like action.  You look on men from your own elevation as upon a quantity of our little wooden images, unto whom you affix puny characteristics, under restrictions from which they shall not escape, though they attempt it with the enterprising vigour of an extended leg, or a pair of raised arms, or a head awry, or a trick of jumping; and some of them are extraordinarily addicted to these feats; but for all they do the end is the same, for necessity rules, that exactly so, under stress of activity must the doll Nevil, the doll Everard, or the dolliest of dolls, fair woman, behave.  The automatic creature is subject to the laws of its construction, you perceive.  It can this, it can that, but it cannot leap out of its mechanism.  One definition of the art is, humour made easy, and that may be why Cecil Baskelett indulged in it, and why it is popular with those whose humour consists of a readiness to laugh.

The fun between Cecil Baskelett and Mr. Romfrey over the doll Nevil threatened an intimacy and community of sentiment that alarmed Rosamund on behalf of her darling’s material prospects.  She wrote to him, entreating him to come to Steynham.  Nevil Beauchamp replied to her both frankly and shrewdly:  ’I shall not pretend that I forgive my uncle Everard, and therefore it is best for me to keep away.  Have no fear.  The baron likes a man of his own tastes:  they may laugh together, if it suits them; he never could be guilty of treachery, and to disinherit me would be that.  If I were to become his open enemy to-morrow, I should look on the estates as mine-unless I did anything to make him disrespect me.  You will not suppose it likely.  I foresee I shall want money.  As for Cecil, I give him as much rope as he cares to have.  I know very well Everard Romfrey will see where the point of likeness between them stops.  I apply for a ship the moment I land.’

To test Nevil’s judgement of his uncle, Rosamund ventured on showing this letter to Mr. Romfrey.  He read it, and said nothing, but subsequently asked, from time to time, ‘Has he got his ship yet?’ It assured her that Nevil was not wrong, and dispelled her notion of the vulgar imbroglio of a rich uncle and two thirsty nephews.  She was hardly less relieved in reflecting that he could read men so soberly and accurately.  The desperation of the youth in love had rendered her one little bit doubtful of the orderliness of his wits.  After this she smiled on Cecil’s assiduities.  Nevil obtained his appointment to a ship bound for the coast of Africa to spy for slavers.  He called on his uncle in London, and spent the greater part of the hour’s visit with Rosamund; seemed cured of his passion, devoid of rancour, glad of the prospect of a run among the slaving hulls.  He and his uncle shook hands manfully, at the full outstretch