“I should think very badly of it indeed,” said I. “Or if Incapability Wood should threaten, in the event of the populace appearing, to produce from the Earl’s pocket a surreptitious order on the treasury for something like twelve thousand pounds?” “Worse still.” “Well, then; I don’t think you’ll find _that_ sort of thing going on in London, at all events.” “Have you any commands for the other side of the Channel?” “Oh, then, you are determined to leave? Well, perhaps upon the whole it is your wisest plan. And—I say—just tell them that if things look worse, I may be over one of these fine mornings. Good-bye.” And so, with a cordial pressure of the hand, we parted. “Monte-Christo,” I said, as that very evening I bundled Bagsby into a _fiacre_ on our way to the railroad station—“Monte-Christo, my good fellow, let me give you a slight piece of advice, which it would be well if all of our craft and calling would keep in memory,—‘THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU WRITE UP ANOTHER REVOLUTION.’” THE CAXTONS—A FAMILY PICTURE. CHAPTER I. “Sir—sir—it is a boy!” “A boy,” said my father, looking up from his book, and evidently much puzzled; “what is a boy?” Now, my father did not mean by that interrogatory to challenge philosophical inquiry, nor to demand of the honest but unenlightened woman who had just rushed into his study, a solution of that mystery, physiological and psychological, which has puzzled so many curious sages, and lies still involved in the question, “What is man?” For, as we need not look farther than Dr Johnson’s Dictionary to know that a boy is “a male child”—_i. e._, the male young of man; so he who would go to the depth of things, and know scientifically what is a boy, must be able first to ascertain “what is a man?” But, for aught I know, my father may have been satisfied with Buffon on that score, or he may have sided with Monboddo. He may have agreed with Bishop Berkeley—he may have contented himself with Professor Combe—he may have regarded the genus spiritually, like Zeno, or materially, like Epicurus. Grant that boy is the male young of man, and he would have had plenty of definitions to choose from. He might have said, “Man is a stomach—_ergo_, boy a male young stomach. Man is a brain,—boy a male young brain. Man is a bundle of habits—boy a male young bundle of habits. Man is a machine—boy a male young machine. Man is a tail-less monkey—boy a male young tail-less monkey. Man is a combination of gases—boy a male young combination of gases. Man is an appearance—boy a male young appearance,” &c. &c., and etcetera, _ad infinitum_! And if none of these definitions had entirely satisfied my father, I am perfectly persuaded that he would never have come to Mrs Primmins for a new one.