was an only child. Indeed, considering the labour that was taken to
spoil him, he was rather a commendable youth; for, with the pedantic
folly of his teachers, the blind affection of his father and mother,
the obsequiousness of the servants, and flattery of the visitors, it
was some credit to him that he was not an idiot, or a brute--though
when he imitated the manners of a man, he had something of the
latter in his appearance; for he would grin and bow to a lady, catch
her fan in haste when it fell, and hand her to her coach, as
thoroughly void of all the sentiment which gives grace to such
tricks, as a monkey.



CHAPTER X.



One morning in winter, just as the dean, his wife, and darling
child, had finished their breakfast at their house in London, a
servant brought in a letter to his master, and said "the man waited
for an answer."

"Who is the man?" cried the dean, with all that terrifying dignity
with which he never failed to address his inferiors, especially such
as waited on his person.

The servant replied with a servility of tone equal to the haughty
one of his master, "he did not know; but that the man looked like a
sailor, and had a boy with him."