success I obtained in this company. I was, as
the Germans would say, "Der Herr Potts
SELBST, nicht nach seinen Begebenheiten"—
the man Potts, not the creature of his belongings.

The man thus freed from his "antecedents,"
and owning no "relatives," feels like one to
whom a great, a most unlimited credit has been
opened, in matter of opinion. Not reduced
to fashion his sentiments by some supposed
standard becoming his station, he roams at will
over the broad prairie of life, enough if he can
show cause why he says this or thinks that,
without having to defend himself for his
parentage, and the place he was born in. Little
wonder if, with such a sum to my credit, I
drew largely on it; little wonder if I were
dogmatical and demonstrative; little wonder if,
when my reason grew wearied with facts, I
reposed on my imagination in fiction.

Be it remembered, however, that I only
became what I have set down here after an
excellent dinner, a considerable quantity of
champagne, and no small share of a claret,
strong-bodied enough to please the priest. I didn't like
that priest. From the moment we sat down to
table, I conceived for him a sort of distrust. He
was painfully polite and civil; he had a soft,
slippery, Clare accent; but there was a malicious
twinkle in his eye that showed he was by nature
satirical. Perhaps because we were more reading
men than the others that it was we soon
found ourselves pitted against each other in
argument, and this not upon one, but upon
every possible topic that turned up. Hammond,
I found also, stood by the priest; Oxley was my
backer; and his lordship played umpire. Dyke
was a shrewd, sarcastic dog in his way, but he
had no chance with me. How mercilessly I
treated his church!—he pushed me to it—what
an exposé did I make of the Pope and his
government, with, all their extortions and cruelties!
How ruthlessly I showed them up as the
sworn enemies of all freedom and enlightenment!
The priest never got angry. He was too
cunning for that, and he even laughed at some
of my anecdotes, of which I related a great
many.

"Don't be so hard on him, Potts," whispered
my lord, as the day wore on; "he's not one
of us, you know!"

This speech put me into a flutter of
delight. It was not alone that he called me Potts,
but there was also an acceptance of me as one
of his own set. We were, in fact, henceforth
"nous autres." Enchanting recognition, never
to be forgotten!

"But what would you do with us?" said
Dyke, mildly remonstrating against some severe
measures we of the landed interest might be yet
driven to resort to.

"I don't know—that is to say—I have not
made up my mind whether it were better to
make a clearance of you altogether, or to bribe
you."

"Bribe us by all means, then!" said he, with
a most serious earnestness.

"Ah! but could we rely upon you?" I
asked.

"That would greatly depend upon the price."

"I'll not haggle about terms, nor I'm sure
would Keldrum," said I, nodding over to his
lordship.

"You are only just to me, in that," said he,
smiling.

"That's all fine talking for you fellows who
had the luck to be first on the list, but what are
poor devils like Oxley and myself to do?" said
Hammond. "Taxation comes down to second
sons."

"And the Times says that's all right," added
Oxley.

"And I say it's all wrong; and I say more," I
broke in: "I say that of all the tyrannies of
Europe, I know of none like that newspaper.
Why, sir, whose station, I would ask, now-a-days,
can exempt him from its impertinent criticisms?
Can Keldrum say—can I say—that to-morrow or
next day we shall not be arraigned for this, that,
or t'other? I choose, for instance, to manage
my estate—the property that has been in my
family for centuries—the acres that have
descended to us by grants as old as Magna Charta.
I desire, for reasons that seem sufficient to
myself, to convert arable into grass land. I say to
one of my tenant farmers—it's Hedgeworth—no
matter, I shall not mention names, but I say to
him—"

"I know the man," broke in the priest; "you
mean Hedgeworth Davis, of Mount Davis."

"No, sir, I do not," said I, angrily, for I
resented this attempt to run me to earth.

"Hedgeworth! Hedgeworth! It ain't that
fellow that was in the Rifles; the 2nd battalion,
is it?" said Oxley.

"I repeat," said I, "that I will mention no
names."

"My mother had some relatives Hedgeworths,
they were from Herefordshire. How
odd, Potts, if we should turn out to be
connexions! you said that these people were
related to you."

"I hope," I said, angrily, "that I am not
bound to give the birth, parentage, and education
of every man whose name I may mention
in conversation. At least, I would protest that
I have not prepared myself for such a demand
upon my memory."

"Of course not, Potts. It would be a test
no man could submit to," said his lordship.

"That Hedgeworth, who was in the Rifles,
exceeded all the fellows I ever met in drawing
the long bow. There was no country he
had not been in, no army he had not served
with; he was related to every celebrated man
in Europe; and, after all, it turned out that
his father was an attorney at Market
Harborough, and sub-agent to one of our fellows who
had some property there." This was said by
Hammond, who directed the speech entirely to
me.

"Confound the Hedgeworths, all together,"
Oxley broke in. "They have carried us miles
away from what we were talking of."