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 "O! he's the very king of quizzes!" cried Ireton. "He drags me out of the spleen, when I feel as if there were no possibility I could yawn on another half hour."

Sir Jaspar now, looking with an air of authority towards Ireton, said, "It would have been your good star, not your evil genius, by which you would have been guided, Mr. Ireton, had you been attracted to this old gentleman as to an example, rather than as a butt for your wit. He has very good parts, if he knew how to make use of them; though he has a simplicity of manners, that induces common observers to conclude him to be nearly an ideot. And, indeed, an absent man seems always in a state of childhood; for as he is never occupied with what is present, those who think of nothing else, naturally take it for granted that what passes is above his comprehension; when, perhaps, it is only below his attention. But with Mr. Arbe, though his temper