ask its separate names. His chin rests upon his hands with an air
of meditation; and gradually his thoughts rise up in soliloquy,
which is suffered to invade no ear but ours:--

"Well! who'd have thought it? a parson!--devilish good indeed! How
it will tell at Murkey's! What a metamorphose! if it don't stagger
'em, nothing will! It's the best thing I've done yet! I shall have
to do it over a hundred times, and must get up a sermon or two
beforehand, and swear that I preached them--and, egad! I may have
to do it yet before I'm done--ha! ha! ha!"

The laughter was a quiet chuckle, not to be heard by vulgar ears;
it subsided in the gorges of his throat. The idea of really getting
up a sermon tickled him. He muttered over texts, all that he could
remember; and proceeded to turn over the phrases for an introduction,
such as, unctuous with good things in high degree, he fancied would
be particularly commendable to his unsuspecting hearers. Alfred
Stevens had no small talent for imitation, he derived a quiet sort
of pleasure, on the present occasion, from its indulgence.

"I should have made a famous parson, and, if all trades fail, may
yet. But, now that I am here, what's to come of it? It's not so
hard to put on a long face, and prose in scripture dialect; but,
cui bono? Let me see--hem! The girl is pretty, devilish pretty--with
such an eye, and looks so! There's soul in the wench--life--and
a passion that speaks out in every glance and movement. A very
Cressid, with a cross of Corinne! Should she be like her of Troy?
At all events, it can do no harm to see what she's made of!

"But I must manage warily. I have something to lose in the business.