"Stay a moment," said my father to the servant, who had got back to the door. "Stay a moment," said my father, looking extremely frightened; "perhaps Mr Tibbets may prefer the inn?" "Austin," said Uncle Jack with emotion, "if I were a dog, with no home but a dog-kennel, and you came to me for shelter, I would turn out--to give you the best of the straw!" My father was thoroughly melted this time. "Primmins will be sure to see everything is made comfortable for Mr Tibbets," said he, waving his hand to the servant. "Something nice for supper, Kitty, my dear--and the largest punch-bowl. You like punch, Jack?" "Punch, Austin!" said Uncle Jack, putting his handkerchief to his eyes. The Captain pushed aside the dumb waiter, strode across the room, and shook hands with Uncle Jack; my mother buried her face in her apron, and fairly ran off; and Squills said in my ear, "It all comes of the biliary secretions. Nobody could account for this, who did not know the peculiarly fine organisation of your father's--liver!" FOOTNOTE: [4] Tibullus, iii. 4, 55. M. PRUDHON.--CONTRADICTIONS ECONOMIQUES.[5] If we wished to convert some inveterate democrat--some one of those eternal agitators of political and social revolutions--whose reasonings, though perhaps unconsciously to themselves, are all based on a far too sanguine view of the probable destinies of human society--there is no text-book we should more willingly select than this mad and apparently destructive work of M. Prudhon's. The bold development of those fundamental truths which have hitherto determined the framework of society, and, still more, the display it presents of the utter impotence of the wit of man, and all his speculative ingenuity, to reshape and reorganise the social world, must have, on every mind accustomed to reflection, a most sobering and _conservative_ influence. What it was intended to teach is another matter; but to a mind well constituted it would convey this grave lesson--to recognise and submit to the inevitable; to be content to labour for partial remedies and limited results; to be satisfied with doing good, though it be something short of organic change; to think it sufficient ambition to be of that "salt of the earth" which preserves whatever is pure and excellent, without aspiring to be that consuming flame which is to fuse and recast the world.