Do not mention having heard from me, at the clubs or in society. I am, as I have the right to be, on the sick list, and it is as well my rest should remain undisturbed.
I wish you had any means of making it known that the article in the “Quarterly,” on our Foreign relations, is not mine. The newspapers have coolly assumed me to be the author, and of course I am not going to give them the éclat of a personal denial. The fellow who wrote it must be an ass; since had he known what he pretends, he had never revealed it. He who wants to bag his bird, Colonel, never bangs away at nothing. I have now completed a longer despatch to you than I intend to address to the Noble Secretary at F. O., and am yours, very faithfully,
Horace Upton.
Whose Magnesia is it that contains essence of Bark? Tripley's or Chipley's, I think. Find it out for me, and send me a packet through the office; put up Fauchard's pamphlet with it, on Spain, and a small box of those new blisters,—Mouches they are called; they are to be had at Atkinson's. I have got so accustomed to their stimulating power that I never write without one or two on my forehead. They tell me the cautery, if dexterously applied, is better; but I have not tried it.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE TUTOR AND HIS PUPIL
We are not about to follow up the correspondence of Sir Horace by detailing the reply which Harcourt sent, and all that thereupon ensued between them.
We pass over, then, some months of time, and arrive at the late autumn.
It is a calm, still morning; the sea, streaked with tinted shadows, is without a ripple; the ships of many nations that float on it are motionless, their white sails hung out to bleach, their ensigns drooping beside the masts. Over the summit of Vesuvius—for we are at Naples—a light blue cloud hangs, the solitary one in all the sky. A mild, plaintive song, the chant of some fishermen on the rocks, is the only sound, save the continuous hum of that vast city, which swells and falls at intervals.
Close beside the sea, seated on a rock, are two figures. One is that of a youth of some eighteen or nineteen years; his features, eminently handsome, wear an expression of gloomy pride as in deep preoccupation he gazes out over the bay; to all seeming, indifferent to the fair scene before him, and wrapped in his own sad thoughts. The other is a short, square-built, almost uncouth figure, overshadowed by a wide straw hat, which seems even to diminish his stature; a suit of black, wide and ample enough for one twice his size, gives his appearance a grotesqueness to which his features contribute their share.