I'm  very  fond  of  Alice ;  she  is  a  dear  good  girl  as  ever  lived,
and  I  don't  admire  the  cotton  spinner ;  in  the  first  place,  he's


AND  ALL  THAT  CAME  OF  IT  19

nearly,  or  quite  forty,  while  she  was  nineteen  last  term  ;  in  the
second  place,  he's  a  slow  coach,  good-natured  enough,  and  all
that,  but  nothing  in  him.'

'  No  soul,'  suggested  Harry.
'  Not  enough  to  animate  a  kitten,  I  should  imagine,'  was  the
reply  ; — '  not  that  the  man's  a  fool — indeed,  in  his  own  line  he
is  said  to  be  clever.  He  invented  some  dodge  to  simplify  his
machinery,  by  which  he  nearly  doubled  his  fortune.'

'  That  was  decidedly  clever,'  remarked  Harry,  busily
engaged  in  dressing  the  'Skye'  in  a  muslin  'anti-macassar,'
placed  clean  upon  the  sofa  that  morning.
'  To  come  to  the  point,  however,'  continued  Hazlehurst —
'  I  want  you  to  see  the  man,  and  try  and  find  out  what  he's
made  of.'

'Fool's-flesh  probably,'  suggested  Coverdale,  sotto  voce.
'  I  wish  you  would  try  and  be  serious  for  five  minutes,'  re-
turned Hazlehurst,  testily j  'nothing  is  more  provoking  than
small  attempts  at  wit,  when  one  wants  a  man  to  give  his  atten-
tion sensibly  to  that  which  one  is  saying.'

'  I  stand,  or  more  properly  sit,  corrected ;  so  continue,  most
sapient  and  surly  brother  ! ' — was  the  mocking  answer.
