pompous," all these sepulchres of departed patrimonies veneered in
rosewood that gleamed with French polish, and blazed with ormulu. There
was a coquetry, an air of /petit maitre/, so diffused over the whole
room, that you could not, for the life of you, recollect you were with a
usurer! Plutus wore the, aspect of his enemy Cupid; and how realize your
idea of Harpagon in that baron, with his easy French "/Mon cher/," and
his white, warm hands that pressed yours so genially, and his dress so
exquisite, even at the earliest morn? No man ever yet saw that baron in
a dressing-gown and slippers! As one fancies some feudal baron of old
(not half so terrible) everlastingly clad in mail, so all one's notions
of this grand marauder of civilization were inseparably associated with
varnished boots and a camellia in the button-hole.

"And this is all that he does for you!" cried the baron, pressing
together the points of his ten taper fingers. "Had he but let you
conclude your career at Oxford, I have heard enough of your scholarship
to know that you would have taken high honours, been secure of a
fellowship, have betaken yourself with content to a slow and laborious
profession, and prepared yourself to die on the woolsack."

"He proposes to me now to return to Oxford," said Randal. "It is not too
late!"

"Yes, it is," said the baron. "Neither individuals nor nations ever go
back of their own accord. There must be an earthquake before a river
recedes to its source."

"You speak well," answered Randal, "and I cannot gainsay you. But now!"

"Ah, the now is the grand question in life, the then is obsolete, gone