“Then become a preacher; and here let me give you advice. If you want to become a popular preacher, and a power in the pulpit or on the platform, tear down. It is thankless work to build up; that takes time, demands patience, and does not command immediate popularity and ready applause. You appeal to no passion when constructive. Passion is your ready assistant in destruction. Every man has so much of the savage in him that he likes the war-path and the taste of blood. You appeal to what you know is in all, when you give a war-whoop, and brandish a tomahawk. There is some picturesqueness and a sense of power, in whooping and whirling the axe; there is only prose in smoking calumets of peace.” “I have no fancy for the pulpit; but I should like to become a political speaker.” “We can try you at some village meeting; but the pay is not much. Take my advice and return to Orleigh.” “That is impossible. I have burnt my ships. I can never recross the threshold of the house till I am recognised.” “What—as a literary lion? As a stump orator?” “No, uncle, as Lord Lamerton’s son.” “As—as his—what?” Mr. James Welsh burst into a fit of laughter, and when he was exhausted, exploded, in spite of exhaustion, into a second peal. Jingles maintained his gravity. His brow contracted. He folded his arms across his breast, and stood sternly waiting till this unseemly ebullition of merriment had subsided, in the attitude in which Napoleon appears in Horace Vernet’s celebrated picture, on Saint Helena, looking at the setting sun. “You must excuse me,” said he at last, “if I say that this is not the way in which I expected to be received. First you scoff at my honourable ambition to be a man of letters, and then you explode into indecent laughter when I mention the fact of my parentage with which you are perfectly familiar, though it is not known to the world at large.” “By Jove, Giles, I did not suppose you were such a fool.” “I do not understand you.” “I may say, Giles, that I do not understand you. Do you mean seriously to assure me that you give credence to that cock-and-bull tale?” “Uncle Welsh, I believe my mother’s word.”