"Poor spirit, sir! poor spirit, young man! 'This avarice sticks deep,' as the Swan beautifully observes. 'Nothing venture, nothing have.'"
"Nothing have, nothing venture," I returned, plucking up spirit.
"Nothing have! Young sir, do you doubt my solidity—my capital—my 'golden joys'?"
"Sir, I spoke of myself. I am not rich enough to gamble."
"Gamble!" exclaimed Mr. Peacock, in virtuous indignation—" gamble! what do you mean, sir? You insult me!" and he rose threateningly, and slapped his white hat on his wig. "Pshaw! let him alone, Hal," said the boy, contemptuously. "Sir, if he is impertinent, thrash him." (This was to me.) "Impertinent! thrash!" exclaimed Mr. Peacock, waxing very red; but catching the sneer on his companion's lip, he sat down, and subsided into sullen silence.
Meanwhile I paid my bill. This duty—rarely a cheerful one—performed, I looked round for my knapsack, and perceived that it was in the boy's hands. He was very coolly reading the address, which, in case of accidents, I prudently placed on it: "Pisistratus Caxton, Esq.,— Hotel,—Street, Strand."
I took my knapsack from him, more surprised at such a breach of good manners in a young gentleman who knew life so well, than I should have been at a similar error on the part of Mr. Peacock. He made no apology, but nodded farewell, and stretched himself at full length on the bench. Mr. Peacock, now absorbed in a game of patience, vouchsafed no return to my parting salutation, and in another moment I was alone on the high- road. My thoughts turned long upon the young man I had left; mixed with a sort of instinctive compassionate foreboding of an ill future for one with such habits and in such companionship, I felt an involuntary admiration, less even for his good looks than his ease, audacity, and the careless superiority he assumed over a comrade so much older than himself.
The day twas far gone when I saw the spires of a town at which I intended to rest for the night. The horn of a coach behind made me turn my head, and as the vehicle passed me, I saw on the outside Mr. Peacock, still struggling with a cigar,—it could scarcely be the same,—and his young friend stretched on the roof amongst the luggage, leaning his handsome head on his hand, and apparently unobservant both of me and every one else.
CHAPTER V.
I am apt—judging egotistically, perhaps, from my own experience-to measure a young man's chance of what is termed practical success in life by what may seem at first two very vulgar qualities; viz., his inquisitiveness and his animal vivacity. A curiosity which springs forward to examine everything new to his information; a nervous activity, approaching to restlessness, which rarely allows bodily fatigue to interfere with some object in view,—constitute, in my mind, very profitable stock-in-hand to begin the world with.