Richie, enough if it keeps pace with us: and we are not going slow. It
is a thing certain. Dettermain and Newson have repeatedly said, "Money,
money!' hand us money, and we guarantee you a public recognition." Money
we now have. But we cannot be in two fields at once. Is it your desire
to return to England?'

'Not at all,' said I, with a chill at the prospect.

'If it is--?' he pressed me, and relenting added: 'I confess I enjoy this
Suabian land as much as you do. Indolence is occasionally charming. I
am at work, nevertheless. But, Richie, determine not to think little of
yourself: there is the main point; believe me, that is half the battle.
You, sir, are one of the wealthiest gentlemen in Europe. You are
pronouncedly a gentleman. That is what we can say of you at present,
as you appear in the world's eye. And you are by descent illustrious.
Well, no more of that, but consider if you kneel down, who will decline
to put a foot on you? Princes have the habit, and they do it as a matter
of course. Challenge them. And they, Richie, are particularly
susceptible to pity for the misfortunes of their class--kind, I should
say, for class it is not; now I have done. All I tell you is, I intend
you, under my guidance, to be happy.'

I thought his remarks the acutest worldly wisdom I had ever heard,--his
veiled method of treating my case the shrewdest, delicatest, and most
consoling, most inspiring. It had something of the mystical power of the
Oracles,--the power which belongs to anonymous writing. Had he disposed
of my apparent rival, and exalted me to the level of a princely family,
in open speech, he would have conveyed no balm to me--I should have
classed it as one confident man's opinion. Disguised and vague, but
emphatic, and interpreted by the fine beam of his eye, it was