“Ah, Kit!” said he at last, with a deep-drawn sigh, “what slaves are we all, and to the meanest accidents too,--the veriest trifles of our existence. Ask yourself, I beseech you, what is it that continually opposes your progress in life,--what is your rock ahead? Your name! nothing but your name!--call yourself Jones, Wilkins, Simpson, Watkins, and see what an expansion it will give your naturally fine faculties. Nobody will dare to assert that you or I are the same men we were five-and-twenty or thirty years ago, and yet _you_ must be Davis and _I_ must be Classon, whether we will or not. I call this hard,--very hard indeed!” “Would it be any benefit to me if I could call myself Paul Classon?” said Grog, with an insolent grin. “It is not for the saintly man who bears that name to speak boastfully of its responsibilities--” “In bills of exchange, I O U's, promissory notes, and so forth,” laughed in Grog. “I have, I own, done a little in these ways; but what gifted man ever lived who has not at some time or other committed his sorrows to paper. The misfortune in my case was that it was stamped.” “Do you know, Holy Paul, I think you are the greatest 'hemp' I ever met.” “No, Kit, don't say so,--don't, my dear and valued friend; these words give me deep pain.” “I do say it, and I maintain it!” “What good Company you must have kept through life, then!” “The worst of any man in England. And yet,” resumed he, after a pause, “I 'm positively ashamed to think that my daughter should be married by the Reverend Paul Classon.” “A prejudice, my dear and respected friend,--a prejudice quite beneath your enlarged and gifted understanding! Will it much signify to you if he, who one of these days shall say, 'The sentence of this court, Christopher Davis, is transportation beyond the seas,' be a Justice of the Common Pleas or a Baron of the Exchequer? No, no, Kit; it is only your vain, conceited people who fancy that they are not hanged if it was n't Calcraft tied the noose!” More than once did Davis change color at this speech, whose illustrations were selected with special intention and malice. “Here 's daybreak already!” cried Grog, throwing open the window, and admitting the pinkish light of an early dawn, and the fresh sharp air of morning. “It's chilly enough too,” said Classon, shivering, as he emptied the gin into his glass. “I think you 've had enough already,” said Grog, rudely, as he flung both tumbler and its contents out of the window. “Go, have a wash, and make yourself a little decent-looking; one would imagine, to see you, you had passed your night in the 'lock-up'!” “When you see me next, you 'll fancy I 'm an archdeacon.” So saying, and guiding himself by the chairs, Paul Classon left the room.