aristocratic of little clubs called Sebright’s.  When noble blood was called in question he never alluded specially to his own, but he knew how to speak as one of whom all the world was aware on which side he had been placed by the circumstances of his birth.  Thus he used his advantage, and did not abuse it.  And in his profession he had been equally fortunate.  By industry, by a small but wakeful intelligence, and by some aid from patronage, he had got on till he had almost achieved the reputation of talent.  His name had become known among scientific experimentalists, not as that of one who had himself invented a cannon or an antidote to a cannon, but as of a man understanding in cannons and well fitted to look at those invented by others; who would honestly test this or that antidote; or, if not honestly, seeing that such thin-minded men can hardly go to the proof of any matter without some pre-judgment in their minds, at any rate with such appearance of honesty that the world might be satisfied.  And in this way Captain Dale was employed much at home, about London; and was not called on to build barracks in Nova Scotia, or to make roads in the Punjaub.

He was a small slight man, smaller than his uncle, but in face very like him.  He had the same eyes, and nose, and chin, and the same mouth; but his forehead was better,—­less high and pointed, and better formed about the brows.  And then he wore moustaches, which somewhat hid the thinness of his mouth.  On the whole, he was not ill-looking; and, as I have said before, he carried with him an air of self-assurance and a confident balance, which in itself gives a grace to a young man.

He was staying at the present time in his uncle’s house, during the delicious warmth of the summer,—­for, as yet, the month of July was not all past; and his intimate friend, Adolphus Crosbie, who was or was not a mere clerk as my readers may choose to form their own opinions on that matter, was a guest in the house with him.  I am inclined to say that Adolphus Crosbie was not a mere clerk; and I do not think that he would have been so called, even by Lily Dale, had he not given signs to her that he was a “swell.”  Now a man in becoming a swell,—­a swell of such an order as could possibly be known to Lily Dale,—­must have ceased to be a mere clerk in that very process.  And, moreover, Captain Dale would not have been Damon to any Pythias of whom it might fairly be said that he was a mere clerk.  Nor could any mere clerk have got himself in either at the Beaufort or at Sebright’s.  The evidence against that former assertion made by Lily Dale is very strong; but then the evidence as to her latter assertion is as strong, Mr Crosbie certainly was a swell.  It is true that he was a clerk in the General Committee Office.  But then, in the first place, the General Committee Office is situated in Whitehall; whereas poor John Eames was forced to travel daily from his lodgings in Burton Crescent, ever so