"Where to, sir?" asked the cabman.
"To—to London Bridge," said Mr Peacock.
The man mounted the box, and drove on.
"Well, Mr Peacock, I wait your answer. I guess by your face that you are about to tell me a lie; I advise you to speak the truth."
"I don't know what business you have to question me," said Mr Peacock sullenly; and, raising his glance from his own clenched fists, he suffered it to wander over my form with so vindictive a significance that I interrupted the survey by saying, "Will you encounter the house? as the Swan interrogatively puts it—shall I order the cabman to drive to St James's Square?"
"Oh, you know my weak point, sir; any man who can quote Will—sweet Will—has me on the hip," rejoined Mr Peacock, smoothing his countenance, and spreading his palms on his knees. "But if a man does fall in the world, and, after keeping servants of his own, is obliged to be himself a servant,
---- 'I will not shame
To tell you what I am.'"
"The Swan says, 'To tell you what I was,' Mr Peacock. But enough of this trifling: who placed you with Mr Trevanion?"
Mr Peacock looked down for a moment, and then, fixing his eyes on me, said—"Well, I'll tell you: you asked me, when we met last, about a young gentleman—Mr—Mr Vivian."
Pisistratus.—Proceed.