Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/238

218 interview with the beloved Fanny, and would altogether have avoided that impending fate into the threatening jaws of which he was now thrusting himself.

If he had not done so and so, then so and so might have happened, and so and so would not have happened. Exactly! And so it might be argued of all the great events of ancient and modern times. If Cleopatra had squinted, the fortunes of the world would have been changed; if Helen had been otherwise than beautiful, the fate of nations would have been different. "Verily," as honest Touchstone saith, "there is much virtue in If."

Mr. Percival Wylde, then, to make up for the lost time, walked briskly by Apsley House, and turned down Hyde Park Corner towards Wilton Crescent—the goal of his expectations. "How surprised dear Fanny will be to see me!" he thought; "but an interview is doubly valued when it has been least expected." And here, the young gentleman's thoughts were compelled to flow in a very different channel, and to acknowledge that there must be an exception to every rule, whether it prove that rule, or no; for, to his amazement, his roving eye lighted upon the portly figure of a middle-aged gentleman, who was slowly toiling up the slight ascent opposite the St. George's Hospital, and was advancing towards him with an ill-boding look of mingled surprise and indignation.