but untrustworthy, senior of his, and of yours, WILL GLADSTONE; a
lad whose leadership you once acknowledged, but whose pernicious
influence, I am happy to find, you have lately quite cast off.

_Master Joe_ (_knowingly_). Rather! Where there's a WILL there's a
way; and WILL thought it must always be _his_ way. But "not for JOE!"

_Dr. T._ Again, JOSEPH, is not that--ahem!--quotation from the popular
minstrelsy of our time a _leetle_ reminiscent of ruder, and more
Radical days?

_Master Joe_. Perhaps so, Sir, perhaps so. Let me then say that
"_Ego primam tollo, nominor quoniam Leo_" is a very pretty maxim for
lions--and jackals. The former _rôle_ I may not yet have risen to, but
I'm hanged if I'll stoop to the latter.

_Dr. T._ Quite so, quite so! At any rate, not in such a questionable
_Leonina Societas_. Remember, also, JOSEPH, what an awful example you
have in young GRANDOLPH, with whom, at one time, you seemed a little
intimate. You have only to reflect upon _his fiasco_, "to have the
counsels of prudence borne in imperatively upon your mind, and the
lesson will not be the less impressively taught if it is remembered
that GRANDOLPH will be on the spot to take note of and profit by any
mistakes that may be committed by his more deserving and successful
rival."

_Master Joe_ (_aside_). Lessons all round, eh? Seems to me all this
grandmotherly advice is wondrous like a "wigging" in disguise. Perhaps
they'll find I'm better at teaching than learning.