“Now that very wine—­Sir Austin—­I think I do not err in saying, that very wine your respected father, Sir Pylcher Feverel, used to taste whenever he came to consult my father, when I was a boy.  And I remember one day being called in, and Sir Pylcher himself poured me out a glass.  I wish I could call in Ripton now, and do the same.  No!  Leniency in such a case as that!—­The wine would not hurt him—­I doubt if there be much left for him to welcome his guests with.  Ha! ha!  Now if I could persuade you, Sir Austin, as you do not take wine before dinner, some day to favour me with your company at my little country cottage I have a wine there—­the fellow to that—­I think you would, I do think you would”—­Mr. Thompson meant to say, he thought his client would arrive at something of a similar jocund contemplation of his fellows in their degeneracy that inspirited lawyers after potation, but condensed the sensual promise into “highly approve.”

Sir Austin speculated on his legal adviser with a sour mouth comically compressed.

It stood clear to him that Thompson before his Port, and Thompson after, were two different men.  To indoctrinate him now was too late:  it was perhaps the time to make the positive use of him he wanted.

He pencilled on a handy slip of paper:  “Two prongs of a fork; the World stuck between them—­Port and the Palate:  ’Tis one which fails first—­Down goes World;” and again the hieroglyph—­“Port-spectacles.”  He said, “I shall gladly accompany you this evening, Thompson,” words that transfigured the delighted lawyer, and ensigned the skeleton of a great Aphorism to his pocket, there to gather flesh and form, with numberless others in a like condition.

“I came to visit my lawyer,” he said to himself.  “I think I have been dealing with The World in epitome!”

CHAPTER XVIII

The rumour circulated that Sir Austin Feverel, the recluse of Raynham, the rank misogynist, the rich baronet, was in town, looking out a bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir.  Doctor Benjamin Bairam was the excellent authority.  Doctor Bairam had safely delivered Mrs. Deborah Gossip of this interesting bantling, which was forthwith dandled in dozens of feminine laps.  Doctor Bairam could boast the first interview with the famous recluse.  He had it from his own lips that the object of the baronet was to look out a bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir; “and,” added the doctor, “she’ll be lucky who gets him.”  Which was interpreted to mean, that he would be a catch; the doctor probably intending to allude to certain extraordinary difficulties in the way of a choice.

A demand was made on the publisher of The Pilgrim’s Scrip for all his outstanding copies.  Conventionalities were defied.  A summer-shower of cards fell on the baronet’s table.

He had few male friends.  He shunned the Clubs as nests of scandal.  The cards he contemplated were mostly those of the sex, with the husband, if there was a husband, evidently dragged in for propriety’s sake.  He perused the cards and smiled.  He knew their purpose.  What terrible light Thompson and Bairam had thrown on some of them!  Heavens! in what a state was the blood of this Empire.