Much as I disliked the father, he was in his worst moods more tolerable to me than his son. Glimpses of his mind would at times flash out through those unnaturally bright eyes; and betray somewhat of the hell within; but Theophilus was close and dark—a sealed book which no man could open and read. An overweening sense of his own importance was the only trait of his character which lay upon the surface; and this, his master-failing, was revealed by every look and gesture.
A servile flatterer to persons of rank, and insolent and tyrannical to those whom he considered beneath him, he united in his character, the qualifications of both tyrant and slave.
The most brilliant sallies of wit could not produce the least brightening effect upon his saturnine countenance, or the most pathetic burst of eloquence draw the least moisture to his eye, which only became animated when contradicting some well-received opinion, or discussing the merits of an acquaintance, and placing his faults and follies in the most conspicuous light.
He was endowed with excellent practical abilities, possessed a most retentive memory, and a thorough knowledge of the most intricate windings of the human heart. Nothing escaped his observation. It would have been a difficult matter to have made a tool of one, whose suspicions were always wide awake; who never acted from impulse, or without a motive, and who had a shrewd knack of rendering the passions of others subservient to his own.
He was devoted to sensual pleasures, but the mask he wore, so effectually concealed his vicious propensities, that the most cautious parents would have admitted him without hesitation into their family circle. Robert Moncton thought himself master of the mind of his son, and fancied him a mere puppet in his hands; but his cunning was foiled by the superior cunning of Theophilus, and he ultimately became the dupe and victim of the being for whose aggrandizement he did not scruple to commit the worst crimes.
Theophilus was extremely neat in his dress, and from the cravat to the well-polished boot, his costume was perfect. An effeminate, solemn-looking dandy outwardly—within, as ferocious and hard a human biped as ever disgraced the name of man.
"Well, Geoff!" said he, condescendingly presenting his hand, "what have you been doing for the last two years?"
"Writing, in the old place," said I, carelessly.
"A fixture!—ha, ha! 'A rolling stone,' they say, 'gathers no moss.' How does that agree with your stationary position?"
"It only proves, that all proverbs have two sides to them," said I. "You roll about the world and scatter the moss that I sit here to help accumulate."