the test of comparison, will not shut themselves
up in a small set with impunity, for if they do,
they will surely come to forget what numbers of
clever men there are in the world, who can do as
well as they, though in a different line. 'Great!'"
he added, enthusiastically, "how few attain to
being so! A man who would be called great
should give to the world what makes it better or
happier; should give some impetus to the
advance of civilisation; should sacrifice a lifetime,
or maybe a life, to the development of a truth.
There has been little enough of this sort of thing
in our Mutual Union, Bradshaw."

He paused, and I did not speak. I was
bewildered, and could not follow my friend. I was
considerably dashed, and yet I could not see—or
at least own—that he was right. Long adhesion
to a cause, ancient prejudice, I know not what,
may have kept me blind. I had sat so long at
that wonderful table with the green baize upon
it, with the model inkstands, and the cleanly
blotting-paper, and the prodigious quills, which
were never used except by the profile drawer and
our poor friend Smear, who took such prolific
notes. How long had I been used to that way of
spending the evening; how accustomed was my
hand to the little ivory hammer with which it
was my wont to rap the members into silence
when any gentleman was going to enlighten us
with a few remarks! What heart should I have
now for ivory hammers, or anything else belonging
to our revered institution?

This was all the work of that accursed trial.
If that stupid Grampus would have allowed his
neighbour's dog to bark in peace, things might
still have gone on in the old pleasant way. And
yet I don't know. Our dear friend had seemed a
good deal unsettled lately—self-mistrustful, diffident,
hesitating. That speech to the Reverend
Smear, recorded at the close of the last chapter
but one, was very significant of an unsettled frame
of mind: "I am beginning to doubt whether I am
the remarkable person you would in your kindness
make me out to be." There was a misgiving
already existent, and only needing that infernal
trial to give it confirmation. That speech of the
counsel for the other side, "Sir, we have heard a
great deal of what you are not, but nothing of
what you are," seems to have sunk into C. J.'s
very heart of hearts, and made him an altered
man. I felt despondent in the last degree.

"Don't be cast down, "William," said my well-
loved friend, speaking once again with heart in
his voice. "This change makes no difference
between us, or only the difference that we may
not meet quite so often as before. I must do as
I am doing. It was all very well the other way
of life, but it wasn't right. It was very pleasant,
I grant you; very soothing, never to hear
anything but what was agreeable, but it wasn't
wholesome. What a bore I was becoming with
all that reading aloud, and holding forth; I
remember now how they used to yawn. I must
have had more opportunities of studying the
interior of the human mouth than any man not
a dentist in England. No, no! It was a
mistake for me, at any rate. An atmosphere so
carefully guarded from chills and draughts as
that, was not good for one in such good health
as I am. The change, I grant you, is a great
one. The men of the clubs, and others who take
the principal parts in the Drama of London Life,
are not venerative, nor are they easily impressed.
You must mind what you are about with them.
If you make a mistake, they will promptly be
down upon you. The air is rough, cold, bracing;
but it is wholesome and strengthening. Let me
live in it then, old friend, at any rate as long as
my constitution stands it. If I fall into a
consumption, or a bronchitis, I will come back to the
hothouse to be nursed, but till then I will just
go on as well as I can, resolving, at any rate,
rather to be a minnow among the Tritons, than
a Triton among the minnows."

He ceased, and I saw that all was over, and that
it was useless, perhaps wrong, for me to say any
more. Maybe he had chosen rightly, for he
knew better than I did.

At all events, here my function ceases. What
may be the future career of him whose early life
I have thus imperfectly sketched, remains to be
seen, but I shrewdly suspect that the public will
hear of it without need of any chronicling of
mine. My task is over. As my friend issues
out of the limits of that home circle in which he
was so well understood and so highly appreciated,
he passes beyond my reach, and I can only look
on with a sigh, and feel as if he had embarked
upon a long and arduous voyage, and had left
me loitering behind.

NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS,
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
"Pickwick," "Copperfield," &c.
Now publishing, PART VIII., price 1s., of
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly

THE
NEW CHRISTMAS NUMBER,
MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY,
Will be ready on the first of December, stitched in a
cover, price Fourpence.
CONTENTS:
I. MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES
       HOW SHE WENT ON, AND WENT OVER.
II. A PAST LODGER RELATES
       A WILD LEGEND OF A DOCTOR.
III. ANOTHER PAST LODGER RELATES
       HIS EXPERIENCE AS A POOR RELATION.
IV. ANOTHER PAST LODGER RELATES
       WHAT LOT HE DREW AT GLUMPER HOUSE.
V ANOTHER PAST LODGER RELATES
       HIS OWN GHOST STORY.
VI. ANOTHER PAST LODGER RELATES
       CERTAIN PASSAGES TO HER HUSBAND
VII. MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES
       HOW JEMMY TOPPED UP.