CHAPTER X.

"But do come; change your dress, return and dine with me; you will have
just time, Harley. You will meet the most eminent men of our party;
surely they are worth your study, philosopher that you affect to be."

Thus said Audley Egerton to Lord L'Estrange, with whom he had been riding
(after the toils of his office). The two gentlemen were in Audley's
library,--Mr. Egerton, as usual, buttoned up, seated in his chair, in the
erect posture of a man who scorns "inglorious ease;" Harley, as usual,
thrown at length on the sofa., his long hair in careless curls, his
neckcloth loose, his habiliments flowing simplex mundit is, indeed, his
grace all his own; seemingly negligent, never slovenly; at ease
everywhere and with every one, even with Mr. Audley Egerton, who chilled
or awed the ease out of most people.

"Nay, my dear Audley, forgive me. But your eminent men are all men of
one idea, and that not a diverting one, politics! politics! politics!
The storm in the saucer."

"But what is your life, Harley?--the saucer without the storm?"

"Do you know, that's very well said, Audley? I did not think you had so
much liveliness of repartee. Life! life! it is insipid, it is shallow,
--no launching Argosies in the saucer. Audley, I have the oddest
fancy--"

"That of course," said Audley, dryly; "you never had any other. What is
the new one?"