you this information is the chief reason why I sent for you this
morning. God bless you, my dear boy."

And Talbot shut the door, despite his politeness, in the face and
thanks of his adopted son.




CHAPTER XXXI.

There is a great difference between seeking to raise a laugh from
everything, and seeking in everything what justly may be laughed at.
LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Behold our hero, now in the zenith of distinguished dissipations!
Courteous, attentive, and animated, the women did not esteem him the
less for admiring them rather than himself; while, by the gravity of
his demeanour to men,--the eloquent, yet unpretending flow of his
conversation, whenever topics of intellectual interest were discussed,
the plain and solid sense which he threw into his remarks, and the
avidity with which he courted the society of all distinguished for
literary or political eminence,--he was silently but surely
establishing himself in esteem as well as popularity, and laying the
certain foundation of future honour and success.

Thus, although he had only been four months returned to England, he
was already known and courted in every circle, and universally spoken
of as among "the most rising young gentlemen" whom fortune and the
administration had marked for their own. His history, during the four