_surveillance_ of the practised and wary Mrs. Lobkins, deemed it prudent
to expose the exact nature of his own pursuits, and had contented himself
by gradually ripening the mind and the finances of Paul into that state
when the proposition of a leap from a hedge would not be likely greatly
to revolt the person to whom it was made. He now thought that time near
at hand; and filling our hero's glass up to the brim, thus artfully
addressed him:--

"Courage, my friend! Your narration has given me a sensible pleasure;
for curse me if it has not strengthened my favourite opinion,--that
everything is for the best. If it had not been for the meanness of that
pitiful fellow, MacGrawler, you might still be inspired with the paltry
ambition of earning a few shillings a week and vilifying a parcel of poor
devils in the what-d'ye-call it, with a hard name; whereas now, my good
Paul, I trust I shall be able to open to your genius a new career, in
which guineas are had for the asking,--in which you may wear fine
clothes, and ogle the ladies at Ranelagh; and when you are tired of glory
and liberty, Paul, why, you have only to make your bow to an heiress, or
a widow with a spanking jointure, and quit the hum of men like a
Cincinnatus!"

Though Paul's perception into the abstruser branches of morals was not
very acute,--and at that time the port wine had considerably confused the
few notions he possessed upon "the beauty of virtue,"--yet he could not
but perceive that Mr. Pepper's insinuated proposition was far from being
one which the bench of bishops or a synod of moralists would
conscientiously have approved. He consequently remained silent; and Long
Ned, after a pause, continued:--

"You know my genealogy, my good fellow? I was the son of Lawyer Pepper,