"Don't hurry yourself," said Sir Patrick. "Collect your ideas. I can
wait! I can wait!"

Arnold collected his ideas--and committed a second mistake. He
determined on feeling his way cautiously at first. Under the
circumstances (and with such a man as he had now to deal with), it
was perhaps the rashest resolution at which he could possibly have
arrived--it was the mouse attempting to outmanoeuvre the cat.

"You have been very kind, Sir, in offering me the benefit of your
experience," he began. "I want a word of advice."

"Suppose you take it sitting?" suggested Sir Patrick. "Get a chair." His
sharp eyes followed Arnold with an expression of malicious enjoyment.
"Wants my advice?" he thought. "The young humbug wants nothing of the
sort--he wants my niece."

Arnold sat down under Sir Patrick's eye, with a well-founded suspicion
that he was destined to suffer, before he got up again, under Sir
Patrick's tongue.

"I am only a young man," he went on, moving uneasily in his chair, "and
I am beginning a new life--"

"Any thing wrong with the chair?" asked Sir Patrick. "Begin your new
life comfortably, and get another."

"There's nothing wrong with the chair, Sir. Would you--"

"Would I keep the chair, in that case? Certainly."