condition. It 's singular, Harrington; before anybody knew of the
condition I didn't care about it a bit. It seemed to me childish. Who
would think of minding wearing a tin plate? But now!--the sufferings of
Orestes--what are they to mine? He wasn't tied to his Furies. They did
hover a little above him; but as for me, I'm scorched; and I mustn't say
where: my mouth is locked; the social laws which forbid the employment of
obsolete words arrest my exclamations of despair. What do you advise?'

Evan stared a moment at the wretched object, whose dream of meeting a
beneficent old gentleman had brought him to be the sport of a cynical
farceur. He had shivers on his own account, seeing something of himself
magnified, and he loathed the fellow, only to feel more acutely what a
stigma may be.

'It 's a case I can't advise in,' he said, as gently as he could.
'I should be off the grounds in a hurry.'

'And then I'm where I was before I met the horrid old brute!' Raikes
moaned.

'I told him over a pint of port-and noble stuff is that Aurora port!--
I told him--I amused him till he was on the point of bursting--I told him
I was such a gentleman as the world hadn't seen--minus money. So he
determined to launch me. He said I should lead the life of such a
gentleman as the world had not yet seen--on that simple condition, which
appeared to me childish, a senile whim; rather an indulgence of his.'

Evan listened to the tribulations of his friend as he would to those of a
doll--the sport of some experimental child. By this time he knew
something of old Tom Cogglesby, and was not astonished that he should