“This time your clever theory is at fault.”
“Well, who is it? Out with him, Tom. I have not so many stanch friends in the world that I can afford to ignore them.”
“I will tell you his name on one condition.”
“I agree. What is the condition?”
“It is this: that when you hear it you will dismiss from your mind—though it be only for a brief space—all the prejudices that years may have heaped against him, and suffer me to show you that you, with all your belief in your own fairness, are not just; and with a firm conviction in your own generosity, might be more generous. There 's my condition!”
“Well, it must be owned I am going to pay pretty smartly for my information,” said Barrington, laughing. “And if you are about to preach to me, it will not be a 'charity' sermon; but, as I said before, I agree to everything.”
Withering stopped his walk and resumed it again. It was evident he had not satisfied himself how he should proceed, and he looked agitated and undecided. “Barrington,” said he, at last, “you have had about as many reverses in life as most men, and must have met with fully your share of ingratitude and its treatment. Do you feel, now, in looking back, that there are certain fellows you cannot forgive?”
“One or two, perhaps, push me harder than the rest; but if I have no gout flying about me, I don't think I bear them any malice.”
“Well, you have no gouty symptoms now, I take it?”
“Never felt better for the last twenty years.”