“Look in your hand, Mr. Prince,” suggested a thick-headed fellow from the East-Riding, not unlike a bullock in top-boots. Mr. Prince thanked him for the hint; but declined adopting it, on the score that if he opened his hand he should lose him. “Put him in Hobson's glass,” said another. “Well,” replied Hobson, “as we all know Mr. Prince is very poor, I 'll give him sixpence if he will.” This hint at Mr. Prince's poverty was exceedingly relished both by the Prince himself and all the toadeaters about him. Its ingenuity seemed to delight them, as did also the reply made by the great man himself. “I doubt whether you ever had a sixpence to spare in your life.” Another mechanical laugh was here put in at Hobson's expense, which that gentleman not relishing quite so well as he would have done had the insinuation been made at the expense of any other person, he repelled it by challenging Mr. Prince to produce, there and then, as many sovereigns upon the table as any other man in the company. This touched Mr. Prince in a delicate place, and he growled out with a horrible oath, that he could buy Hobson and all his family up with only the simple interest of his capital. At the same time he put his hand in his breeches-pocket, and drew forth a broad-bellied greasy black pocket-book, which he slapped heavily on the table, as he swore there was more money in it than Hobson had ever even so much as seen together before. Hobson flatly denied it, and offered to bet glasses round that it did not contain twenty pounds more than his own. “Done!” roared Mr. Prince, as his clenched fist fell on the table, with a weight which made all the pipes and glasses upon it dance a momentary hornpipe. A comparison of pocket-books was immediately instituted. Mr. Prince's was declared to contain one hundred and seventy bank-notes more than Hobson's, and Hobson was called upon for the grog. This being more than he expected, he endeavoured to evade the bet altogether, by insinuating that he should not believe Mr. Prince's notes were good, unless he looked at them himself. Several voices cried together “No, no!” and the rest vented their opinions in loud exclamations of “Shame, shame!--Too bad!” and the like. Mr. Prince felt the indignity offered to his pocket-book most keenly. He looked unutterable things at Hobson, and bellowed loud enough to have been heard as far as Lad Lane, that he would not trust a single farthing of his money in the hands of such a needy, starving, penniless bankrupt as he was. Many of those present felt that this language was not exactly warrantable; but there were no cries of shame in favour of Mr. Hobson. At this interesting period of the discussion, Colin's eyes chanced to be fixed very earnestly on the countenance of Mr. Prince, which that gentleman remarking, he forthwith turned suddenly on the young man with this abrupt demand:-- “What are _you_ staring at, eh? Did you never see a man's face before.”