CHAPTER VII.
CECIL'S FIRST FALSE STEP.
No man can be a great enemy, but under the name of a friend; if you are a cuckold, it is your friend only that makes you so, for your enemy is not admitted to your house; if you are cheated in your fortune, 'tis your friend that does it, for your enemy is not made your trustee; if your honour or good name is injured, 'tis your friend that does it still, for your enemy is not believed against you.
WYCHERLEY.—Plain Dealer.
"Well, Frank, and how goes the world with you?" said Cecil, after having made him acquainted with the present state of his affairs.
"Tollollish!" replied Frank. "I have an ingenious youth in training, who, I am sorry to say, is nearly trained or drained. Picked him up abroad—genus snob, very distinct! But snob's money I find quite as available as any other. I was going from Verviers to Cologne this summer, when in the deserted first-class carriage into which I ensconced myself, there stepped a flaxen-haired youth, of the unmistakeable "gent" style—the only real substitute for a "gentleman." He was soon after followed by a lathy boy, all skin and bone, with trousers either shrunk by washing, or considerably outgrown, and fastened with immeasureable straps. The swagger of this boy was worth money to see. He entered into familiar conversation at once, and favoured me with some biographical particulars, which were eminently trivial. At last he took out his cigar-case, and offering it to me, with an air of exquisite assumption said,—
"Do you do anything in this way?"
"Not so early in the day."
"Lord, it doesn't matter to me what's the time o' day, I'm always ready to blow a cloud, I can tell you."
"Indeed," said I, with perfect gravity.