CHAPTER VII.

"/Miramont./--Do they chafe roundly?
/Andrew./--As they were rubbed with soap, sir,
And now they swear aloud, now calm again
Like a ring of bells, whose sound the wind still utters,
And then they sit in council what to do,
And then they jar again what shall be done?"
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

OH! what a picture of human nature it was when the banker and the
vagabond sat together in that little drawing-room, facing each
other,--one in the armchair, one on the sofa! Darvil was still employed
on some cold meat, and was making wry faces at the very indifferent
brandy which he had frightened the formal old servant into buying at the
nearest public-house; and opposite sat the respectable--highly
respectable man of forms and ceremonies, of decencies and quackeries,
gazing gravely upon this low, daredevil ruffian:--the well-to-do
hypocrite--the penniless villain;--the man who had everything to
lose--the man who had nothing in the wide world but his own mischievous,
rascally life, a gold watch, chain and seals, which he had stolen the
day before, and thirteen shillings and threepence halfpenny in his left
breeches pocket!

The man of wealth was by no means well acquainted with the nature of the
beast before him. He had heard from Mrs. Leslie (as we remember) the
outline of Alice's history, and ascertained that their joint
/protegee's/ father was a great blackguard; but he expected to find Mr.
Darvil a mere dull, brutish villain--a peasant-ruffian--a blunt serf,
without brains, or their substitute, effrontery. But Luke Darvil was a