thought what a fine thing it would be to be lord of such a domain,
together with the appliances of flageolet and cremona, boxing-gloves,
books, fly-flanking flagellum, three guineas, with the little mountain of
silver, and the reputation--shared only with Lord Dunshunner--of being
the best whip in London.

"Yes," continued Tomlinson, with conscious pride, "I owe my rise to
myself. Learning is better than house and land. 'Doctrina sed vim,'
etc. You know what old Horace says? Why, sir, you would not believe it;
but I was the man who killed his Majesty the King of Sardinia in our
yesterday's paper. Nothing is too arduous for genius. Fag hard, my boy,
and you may rival (for the thing, though difficult, may not be
impossible) Augustus Tomlinson!"

At the conclusion of this harangue, a knock at the door being heard, Paul
took his departure, and met in the hall a fine-looking person dressed in
the height of the fashion, and wearing a pair of prodigiously large
buckles in his shoes. Paul looked, and his heart swelled. "I may
rival," thought he,--"those were his very words,--I may rival (for the
thing, though difficult, is not impossible) Augustus Tomlinson!"
Absorbed in meditation, he went silently home. The next day the memoirs
of the great Turpin were committed to the flames, and it was noticeable
that henceforth Paul observed a choicer propriety of words, that he
assumed a more refined air of dignity, and that he paid considerably more
attention than heretofore to the lessons of Mr. Peter MacGrawler.
Although it must be allowed that our young hero's progress in the learned
languages was not astonishing, yet an early passion for reading, growing
stronger and stronger by application, repaid him at last with a tolerable
knowledge of the mother-tongue. We must, however, add that his more
favourite and cherished studies were scarcely of that nature which a