Among other conversation, his lordship did not fail to inquire if I were come to make any stay in town; and what my intentions and plan were? On being informed of these, he professed a great desire to serve me; and added that a thought had struck him, which perhaps might be agreeable to me. If so, it would give him great pleasure. He wished to have a friend, who during an hour of a morning might afford him conversation. Perhaps he might occasionally trouble him to commit a few thoughts to writing; but that might be as it happened. If I would come and reside in his house, and act in this friendly manner with him, he should be gratified and I not injured.
Enoch's open eyes twinkled with joy: sparkle they could not. He foresaw through my means, intercourse with a peer, and perhaps patronage! He was ready to answer for me, and could not restrain his tongue from protesting that it was a prodigiously liberal, friendly and honourable offer.
I had not forgotten his lordship's former jolly tutor, the terms on which they had lived, or the treatment to which this tutor had occasionally submitted. Yet I was not displeased with the proposal. I spurned at the idea of any such submission, but the character of his lordship seemed changed: and changed it certainly was, though I then knew not why, or to what. Nor was it supposed that I was to act as his menial. I therefore expressed my sense of his lordship's civility, and owned the situation would be acceptable to me, as I was not at present encumbered with riches, and living in London I found was likely to prove expensive. I had desired to have a genteel apartment, and Enoch had told me that one had been hired for me at a guinea and a half per week, at which I had been not a little startled. The secret of want of wealth a very cunning man would have concealed: a very wise man, though from other motives, would have told it with the same unaffected simplicity that I did.
Still the transports of Enoch, at his lordship's bounty, were inexhaustible. They put me to the blush: but whether it was at being unable to keep pace with him in owning this load of obligations, or at his impertinent acknowledgment of feelings for me of which I was unconscious, is more than I can tell. For his part, he did but speak on the behalf of his young friend. I had come well recommended to him, and he had already conceived a very singular affection for me. He had no doubt but that I should be prodigiously grateful to his lordship for all favours. His good advice should certainly never be wanting; and patrons like his lordship could not, by any possible efforts, be too humbly and dutifully served.
I did but feebly second this submissive sense of obligation, and these overflowing professions for favours not yet received. Luckily however he talked so fast, and was so anxious to recommend himself, that I had scarcely an opportunity to put in a word. He took all the trouble upon himself.
I ought to have mentioned that, before the proposal was made, his lordship had taken care to inquire if I understood the living languages? He spoke a few sentences in French to me himself, and attempted to do the same in Italian, but succeeded in the latter very indifferently. My answers satisfied him that I was no stranger to these studies.
The fact was, his lordship found it necessary to keep a secretary, to aid him in his politics not only to write but to think; and I afterward learned, from his valet, that he had allowed a hundred a year to one who had left his service that very day. His lordship was doubtless therefore well satisfied with the meeting of this morning, in which he not only recovered his diamond repeater but rewarded the youth who brought it, by suffering him to do the same business gratis for which he had before been obliged to pay.
CHAPTER IV
Memento of an old acquaintance: Gentility alarmed: The family of Enoch: Musical raptures and card-table good breeding
By the order of his lordship, two chairmen with a horse were dispatched for my effects; and possession was given me of the apartment occupied by my predecessor. In this apartment a trunk, which he had not removed, was left; and on it was a direction to Henry Turl. This excited my curiosity: I inquired of the valet, and from his description was confirmed in the conjecture, that my quondam school and college acquaintance, Turl, had been his lordship's late secretary.