Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/24

 of mine. I do not presume to dictate to any man’s conscience. You pay tithes, you say, and give in charity. It is excellent hearing, and I confess that I was in some hope a little earlier, when you vaunted those virtues so proudly, that some of my guineas might perchance come back to me hereafter. But it was a momentary thought only. You know your own trade. I wish you good-night. I fear ’tis a cold ride for you.” And he dismissed me with a gentle motion of his hands.

Now I have ever been a fellow of red-hot impulse, and my passions and my humour mingle so strangely and vie so oddly, that I swear I can scarce tell at one moment what fit will take me the next. And at this inimitable farewell, so suavely phrased, and so courteously charged, stinging the while with such faint and friendly satire, I was so vastly tickled that I could not forbear bursting into laughter in that silent road.

“The devil take me!” says I, “I love a bishop, and to lighten a brother-wit is monstrously against my stomach. So here’s for you, my