It never
seems to have occurred to you what an out-and-out blackguard you are, so
I may as well put it to you plainly. If you are not a thief, you are, at
least, a very well-coloured imitation. You take a girl's book and make
hundreds upon hundreds out of it, and give her fifty. You tie her down,
so as to provide for successful swindling of the same sort, during
future years, and then, when she comes to beg a few pounds of you, you
show her the door. And now you wonder, Mr. Meeson, that respectable
people will have nothing to do with you! Well, now, I tell you, _my_
opinion is that the only society to which you would be really suited is
that of cow-hide. Good morning," and the large young man walked off, his
very moustachios curling with wrath and contempt. Thus, for a second
time, did the great Mr. Meeson hear the truth from the lips of babes and
sucklings, and the worst of it was that he could not disinherit Number
Two as he had Number One.
Now this will strike the reader as being very warm advocacy on the part
of Mr. Tombey, who, being called in to console and bless, cursed with
such extraordinary vigour. It may even strike the discerning reader--and
all readers, or, at least, nearly all readers, are of course discerning:
far too much so, indeed--that there must have been a reason for it; and
the discerning reader will be right.
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