Mr. Wittingham rubs the organ above the ear again, gets the finger up to Ideality, and rubs that, then round to Cautiousness, and having slightly excited it with the extreme point of the index of the right-hand, pauses there, as if afraid of stimulating it too strongly, and unmanning his greater purposes. But it is a ticklish organ, soon called into action, in some men, and see how easily Mr. Wittingham has brought its functions into operation. He buttons his coat up to the chin as if it were winter, and yet it is as mild an evening as one could wish to take a walk in by the side of a clear stream, with the fair moon for a companion, or something fairer still. It is evident that Cautiousness is at work at a terrible rate, otherwise he would never think of buttoning up his coat on such a night as that; and now without another word to the landlord, he crosses the street, and bends his steps homeward with a slow, thoughtful, vacillating step, murmuring to himself two or three words which our friend Ned Hayward had pronounced, as if they contained some spell which forced his tongue to their repetition. "Very like me," he said, "very like me? Hang the fellow! Very like me! Why, what the devil--he can't mean to accuse me of robbing the carriage. Very like me! Then, as the mischief must have it, that it should be Mrs. Clifford too! I shall have roystering Sir John upon my back--'pon my life, I do not know what to do. Perhaps it would be better to be civil to these two young fellows, and ask them to dinner; though I do not half like that Beauchamp--I always thought there was something suspicious about him with his grave look, and his long solitary walks, nobody knowing him, and he knowing nobody. Yet this Captain Hayward seems a great friend of his, and he is a friend of Sir John's--so he must be somebody--I wonder who the devil he is? Beauchamp?--Beauchamp? I shouldn't wonder if he were some man rusticated from Oxford. I'll write and ask Henry. He can most likely tell." The distance which Mr. Wittingham had to go was by no means great, for the little town contained only three streets--one long one, and two others leading out of it. In one of the latter, or rather at the end of one of the latter, for it verged upon the open country beyond the town, was a large house, his own particular dwelling, built upon the rise of the hill, with large gardens and pleasure-grounds surrounding it, a new, well-constructed, neatly pointed, brick wall, two green gates, and sundry conservatories. It had altogether an air of freshness and comfort about it which was certainly pleasant to look upon; but it had nothing venerable. It spoke of fortunes lately made, and riches fully enjoyed, because they had not always been possessed. It was too neat to be picturesque, too smart to be in good taste. I was a bit of Clapham or Tooting transported a hundred or two miles into the country--very suburban indeed!