It was now about one o’clock: Francis Ardry ordered dinner for two, to be ready at four, and a pint of sherry to be brought forthwith, which I requested my friend the waiter might be the very best, and which in effect turned out as I requested; we sat down, and when we had drunk to each other’s health, Frank requested me to make known to him how I had contrived to free myself from my embarrassments in London, what I had been about since I quitted that city, and the present posture of my affairs.
I related to Francis Ardry how I had composed the Life of Joseph Sell, and how the sale of it to the bookseller had enabled me to quit London with money in my pocket, which had supported me during a long course of ramble in the country, into the particulars of which I, however, did not enter with any considerable degree of fulness. I summed up my account by saying that “I was at present a kind of overlooker in the stables of the inn, had still some pounds in my purse, and, moreover, a capital horse in the stall.”
“No very agreeable posture of affairs,” said Francis Ardry, looking rather seriously at me.
“I make no complaints,” said I, “my prospects are not very bright, it is true, but sometimes I have visions both waking and sleeping, which, though always strange, are invariably agreeable. Last night, in my chamber near the hayloft, I dreamt that I had passed over an almost interminable wilderness—an enormous wall rose before me, the wall, methought, was the great wall of China:—strange figures appeared to be beckoning to me from the top of the wall; such visions are not exactly to be sneered at. Not that such phantasmagoria,” said I, raising my voice, “are to be compared for a moment with such desirable things as fashion, fine clothes, cheques from uncles, parliamentary interest, the love of splendid females. Ah! woman’s love,” said I, and sighed.
“What’s the matter with the fellow?” said Francis Ardry.
“There is nothing like it,” said I.
“Like what?”
“Love, divine love,” said I.
“Confound love,” said Francis Ardry, “I hate the very name; I have made myself a pretty fool by it, but trust me for ever being at such folly again. In an evil hour I abandoned my former pursuits and amusements for it; in one morning spent at Joey’s there was more real pleasure than in—”
“Surely,” said I, “you are not hankering after dog-fighting again, a sport which none but the gross and unrefined care anything for? No, one’s thoughts should be occupied by something higher and more rational than dog-fighting; and what better than love—divine love? Oh, there’s nothing like it!”