well through the world; but he has little solidity, Alan, little
solidity.'

I scorn to desert an absent friend, Darsie, so I said for you a
little more than my conscience warranted: but your defection
from your legal studies had driven you far to leeward in my
father's good opinion.

'Unstable as water, he shall not excel,' said my father; 'or, as
the Septuagint hath it, EFUSA EST SICUT AQUA--NON CRESCAT. He
goeth to dancing-houses, and readeth novels--SAT EST.'

I endeavoured to parry these texts by observing, that the
dancing-houses amounted only to one night at La Pique's ball--the
novels (so far as matter of notoriety, Darsie) to an odd volume
of TOM JONES.

'But he danced from night to morning,' replied my father, 'and he
read the idle trash, which the author should have been scourged
for, at least twenty times over. It was never out of his hand.'

I then hinted, that in all probability your fortune was now so
easy as to dispense with your prosecuting the law any further
than you had done; and therefore you might think you had some
title to amuse yourself. This was the least palatable argument
of all.

'If he cannot amuse himself with the law,' said my father,
snappishly 'it is the worse for him. If he needs not law to
teach him to make a fortune, I am sure he needs it to teach him