“‘Would you like to see the morning papers, sir?’ pointing as he spoke, with a kind of easy indifference, to the pile before him. ‘There’s the “Chronicle,” “Times,” “Globe,” “Sun,” and “Examiner;” take your choice, sir.’
“And with that he yawned, stretched himself, and, letting down the glass, looked out; thereby turning his back on me, and not paying the slightest attention to the grateful thanks by which I accepted his offer.
“‘Devilish haughty,’ thought I; ‘should n’t wonder if he was one of the great mill-owners here,—great swells they are, I hear.’
“‘Ah! you read the “Times,” I perceive,’ said he, turning round, and fixing a steadfast and piercing look on me; ‘you read the “Times,”—a rascally paper, an infamous paper, sir, a dishonest paper. Their opposition to the new poor law is a mere trick, and their support of the Peel party a contemptible change of principles.’
“Lord! how I wished I had taken up the ‘Chronicle’! I would have paid a week’s subscription to have been able to smuggle the ‘Examiner’ into my hand at that moment.
“‘I ‘m a Whig, sir,’ said he; ‘and neither ashamed nor afraid to make the avowal,—a Whig of the old Charles Fox school,—a Whig who understands how to combine the happiness of the people with the privileges of the aristocracy.’
“And as he spoke he knitted his brows, and frowned at me, as though I were Jack Cade bent upon pulling down the Church, and annihilating the monarchy of these realms.
“‘You may think differently,’ continued he,—‘I perceive you do: never mind, have the manliness to avow your opinions. You may speak freely to one who is never in the habit of concealing his own; indeed, I flatter myself that they are pretty well known by this time.’
“‘Who can he be?’ thought I. ‘Lord John is a little man, Lord Melbourne is a fat one; can it be Lord Nor-manby, or is it Lord Howick?’ And so I went on to myself, repeating the whole Whig Peerage, and then, coming down to the Lower House, I went over every name I could think of, down to the lowest round of the ladder, never stopping till I came to the member for Sudbury.
“‘It ain’t him,’ thought I; ‘he has a lisp, and never could have such a fine coat as that.’