infamy. An old man! the best of men! the kindest and truest! the most
unselfish!'

'He tops me by half a head, and he's my junior.'

Beauchamp suffered himself to give out a groan of sick derision: 'Ah!'

'And it was no joke holding him tight,' said Mr. Romfrey, 'I 'd as lief
snap an ash. The fellow (he leaned round to Colonel Halkett) must be a
fellow of a fine constitution. And he took his punishment like a man.
I've known worse: and far worse: gentlemen by birth. There's the choice
of taking it upright or fighting like a rabbit with a weasel in his hole.
Leave him to think it over, he'll come right. I think no harm of him,
I've no animus. A man must have his lesson at some time of life. I did
what I had to do.'

'Look here, Nevil,' Stukely Culbrett checked Beauchamp in season: 'I beg
to inquire what Dr. Shrapnel means by "the people." We have in our
country the nobles and the squires, and after them, as I understand it,
the people: that's to say, the middle-class and the working-class--fat
and lean. I'm quite with Shrapnel when he lashes the fleshpots. They
want it, and they don't get it from "their organ," the Press. I fancy
you and I agree about their organ; the dismallest organ that ever ground
a hackneyed set of songs and hymns to madden the thoroughfares.'

'The Press of our country!' interjected Colonel Halkett in moaning
parenthesis.

'It's the week-day Parson of the middle-class, colonel. They have their
thinking done for them as the Chinese have their dancing. But, Nevil,