“The Swan says, ‘To tell you what I was,’ Mr. Peacock. But enough of this trifling. Who placed you with Mr. Trevanion?”
Mr. Peacock looked down for a moment, and then fixing his eyes on me, said, “Well, I’ll tell you: you asked me, when we met last, about a young gentleman,—Mr.—Mr. Vivian.”
Pisistratus.—“Proceed.”
Peacock.—“I know you don’t want to harm him. Besides, ‘He hath a prosperous art,’ and one day or other,—mark my words, or rather my friend Will’s,—
“‘He will bestride this narrow world Like a Colossus.’
“Upon my life he will,—like a Colossus;
“‘And we petty men—‘”
Pisistratus (savagely).—“Go on with your story.”
Peacock (snappishly).—“I am going on with it! You put me out. Where was I—oh—ah—yes. I had just been sold up,—not a penny in my pocket; and if you could have seen my coat,—yet that was better than the small clothes! Well, it was in Oxford Street,—no, it was in the Strand, near the Lowther,—
“‘The sun was in the heavens; and the proud day Attended
with the pleasures of the world.”’