“What would you do, then, in Glencore's place? Let me ask you that.”
“You may as well inquire how I should behave if I were a quadruped. Don't you perceive that I never could, by any possibility, place myself in such a false position? The man who, in a case of difficulty, takes counsel from his passions, is exactly like one, who being thirsty, fills himself out a bumper of aquafortis and drinks it off.”
“I wish with all my heart you 'd give up aphorisms, and just tell me how we could serve this poor fellow; for I feel that there is a gleam of light breaking through his dark fortunes.”
“When a man is in the state Glencore is now in, the best policy is to let him alone. They tell us that when Murat's blood was up, the Emperor always left him to his own guidance, since he either did something excessively brilliant, or made such a blunder as recalled him to subjection again. Let us treat our friend in this fashion, and wait. Oh, my worthy Colonel, if you but knew what a secret there is in that same waiting policy. Many a game is won by letting the adversary move out of his turn.”
“If all this subtlety be needed to guide a man in the plain road of life, what is to become of poor simple fellows like myself?”
“Let them never go far from home, Harcourt, and they 'll always find their way back,” said Upton; and his eyes twinkled with quiet drollery. “Come, now,” said he, with perfect good-nature of look and voice, “If I won't tell you what I should counsel Glencore in this emergency, I 'll do the next best thing, I' ll tell you what advice you'd give him.”
“Let us hear it, then,” said the other.
“You'd send him abroad to search out his wife; ask her forgiveness for all the wrong he has done her; call out any man that whispered the shadow of a reproach against her; and go back to such domesticity as it might please Heaven to accord him.”
“Certainly, if the woman has been unjustly dealt with—”
“There's the rock you always split on: you are everlastingly in search of a character. Be satisfied when you have eaten a hearty breakfast, and don't ask for a bill of health. Researches are always dangerous. My great grandfather, who had a passion for genealogy, was cured of it by discovering that the first of the family was a staymaker! Let the lesson not be lost on us.”