"
"I am glad you are so philosophic, Dick. It is the best thing we can be,
if we can't be religious. How did it all happen?"
"I scarcely know the plot (for there _was_ a plot), but only the
_denouement_. I had offended a certain Mr. Fane, toady-in-ordinary to
Frederick Chandos."
"Ah!" cried Mrs. Yorke, shaking her head.
"Yes; you were right again, mother, there--the whole affair is a tribute
to your sagacity, if you will only permit me to narrate it to you. I say
that this fellow Fane, when walking with his patron's brother, stupid
Jack, had me pointed out to him in town one day as the man who had
'pulled him through,' as he called it. Can you imagine how even such a
fool as he could have been so mad? It was an act of suicide, which, so
far as I know, fools never commit. Well, Fane was pretty certain of the
identity of your humble servant, which he was, moreover, anxious to
establish, because I had beaten him at pool, and given him the rough
side of my tongue."
"Oh, Dick, Dick! have skillful hand and ready speech been only given you
to make enemies?"
Richard laughed, and lighted a cigar.
"Well, sometimes, mother, the most prudent of us are carried away by our
own genius. I am told that even you, for instance, lost your temper upon
a certain occasion down at Crompton--gave a 'piece of your mind' to my
father, which, it seems, he took as a sample of the whole of it.
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