more, for my eyes already begin to dance in the air; and if I listen
longer to your resistless eloquence, my feet may share the same fate!"

So saying, Paul rose; nor could any entreaty, on the part of his
entertainer, persuade him to resume his seat.

"Nay, as you will," said Pepper, affecting a nonchalant tone, and
arranging his cravat before the glass,--"nay, as you will. Ned Pepper
requires no man's companionship against his liking; and if the noble
spark of ambition be not in your bosom, 't is no use spending my breath
in blowing at what only existed in my too flattering opinion of your
qualities. So then, you propose to return to MacGrawler (the scurvy old
cheat!), and pass the inglorious remainder of your life in the mangling
of authors and the murder of grammar? Go, my good fellow, go! scribble
again and forever for MacGrawler, and let him live upon thy brains
instead of suffering thy brains to--"

"Hold!" cried Paul. "Although I may have some scruples which prevent my
adoption of that rising line of life you have proposed to me, yet you are
very much mistaken if you imagine me so spiritless as any longer to
subject myself to the frauds of that rascal MacGrawler. No! My present
intention is to pay my old nurse a visit. It appears to me passing
strange that though I have left her so many weeks, she has never relented
enough to track me out, which one would think would have been no
difficult matter; and now, you see, that I am pretty well off, having
five guineas and four shillings all my own, and she can scarcely think I
want her money, my heart melts to her, and I shall go and ask pardon for
my haste!"

"Pshaw! sentimental," cried Long Ned, a little alarmed at the thought of