“On mature reflection, however, I discarded Moses & Son, and was going to give it up as hopeless, when, all of a sudden, a bright thought flashed across me, and springing to my feet, I exclaimed in a voice of thunder, ‘Gentlemen, I have it; the difficulty is one no longer: the greatest modern benefactor to the human race is—Bass!’”
“Who?” exclaimed Miss Livingstone, entirely mystified and a good deal flurried by the narrator’s unusual energy.
“Bass,” resumed Leicester; “that remarkable man whose gigantic intellect first conceived the project of regenerating society through the medium of pale ale! The idea was hailed with enthusiasm; we immediately sent for a dozen; and ere the liquor was disposed of, there was not a man present but would have staked hundreds on the soundness of my opinion.”
Utterly disgusted and confused by this unexpected termination to the anecdote, Miss Livingstone rose from her chair, sailed out of the room, and thus the visit concluded.
Lewis, after a solitary walk, during which he was revolving in his mind the step he had just taken, and striving to discern in the dull lead-coloured horizon of his future one ray of light which might yield promise of brighter times to come, was ascending Frere’s staircase, when the door of the room above opened suddenly, and a voice, which he thought he recognised, exclaimed—
“Then I may depend upon you; you’ll be with me by eight at the latest, and bring your friend, if possible. Ah! here he is! Mr. Arundel, delighted to see you—none the worse for last night, I hope—wasn’t it glorious? Grandeville has got such a face on him, he won’t be able to show for a week to come; and Meeking of the pallid features is so seedy this morning that I was forced to burthen my conscience by inventing a fictitious fall from his horse, on the strength of which I sent his mamma to nurse him. We must book that to the pious fraud account, and let the charity absolve the lie. Rather shaky divinity, eh, Frere? Well, au revoir; I’m off.”
So saying, Mr. Tom Bracy—for he it was, and none other—dashed down the stairs, and having deeply scandalised Frere’s ancient domestic by an anxious inquiry how it was she did not get a husband, took his departure.
“Frere!” exclaimed Lewis, throwing himself into a chair and coldly repulsing Faust, who never could imagine himself otherwise than welcome, “I’ve done it!”
“So have I, man,” was the reply; “and pretty considerably brown, too, as that nice youth who has just left me would call it. But what have you done to make you so doleful?”
“Sold myself,” returned Lewis bitterly.