"Mr. Halifax"--(I felt pleased to hear him for the first time so
entitled)--had, unfortunately, no watch among his worldly
possessions, and candidly owned the fact. But he made a near guess
by calculating the position of his unfailing time-piece, the sun.--It
was four o'clock.

"Then I must go. Will you not retract, young gentlemen? Surely you
would not lose such a rare treat as 'Macbeth,' with--I will not say
my humble self--but with that divine Siddons. Such a woman!
Shakspeare himself might lean out of Elysium to watch her. You will
join us?"

John made a silent, dolorous negative; as he had done once or twice
before, when the actor urged us to accompany him to Coltham for a few
hours only--we might be back by midnight, easily.

"What do you think, Phineas?" said John, when we stood in the
high-road, waiting for the coach; "I have money--and--we have so
little pleasure--we would send word to your father. Do you think it
would be wrong?"

I could not say; and to this minute, viewing the question nakedly in
a strict and moral sense, I cannot say either whether or no it was an
absolute crime; therefore, being accustomed to read my wrong or right
in "David's" eyes, I remained perfectly passive.

We waited by the hedge-side for several minutes--Mr. Charles ceased
his urging, half in dudgeon, save that he was too pleasant a man
really to take offence at anything. His conversation was chiefly
directed to me. John took no part therein, but strolled about