“Where there's no rivalry, there will be no dispraise. She is so surpassingly beautiful that none will have courage to criticise; and if they should, where can they detect a fault?” “I believe you are right, Twining,--I believe you are right,” said Beecher, and his face glowed with pleasure as he spoke. “Where she got her manners I can't make out,” added he, in a whisper. “Ay, my Lord, these are Nature's own secrets, and she keeps them closely.” “It is the father--old Grog--is the difficulty,” whispered Beecher, still lower; “what can be done with _him?_” “Original, certainly; peculiar,--very peculiar,--what fun!” And Twining in an instant recovered all his wonted manner, and slapped away at his legs unmercifully. “I don't exactly see the fun of it,--especially for me,” said Beecher, peevishly. “After all, a well-known man, my Lord,--public character,--a celebrity, so to say.” “Confound it!” cried Beecher, angrily, “don't you perceive there lies the whole annoyance? The fellow is known from one end of England to the other. You can't enter a club of a rainy day, when men sit round the fire, without hearing a story of him; you don't get to the third station on a railroad till some one says, 'Have you heard old Grog's last?' There's no end to him?” “Wonderful resources!--astonishing!--great fun!” “I'll be hanged if it _is_ great fun, though you are pleased to say so,” said Beecher, angrily. Twining was far too good-tempered to feel hurt by this peevishness, and only rubbed his hands and laughed joyfully. “And the worst of all,” resumed Beecher,--“the worst of all is, he _will_ be a foreground figure; do what you may, he _will_ be in the front of the Stand-house.” “Get him a situation abroad, my Lord,--something in the colonies,” broke in Twining. “Not a bad thought that, Twining; only he is so notorious.” “Doesn't signify in the least, my Lord. Every office under the Crown has its penal settlements. The Foreign Office makes its culprits consuls; the Colonial sends their chief justices to the Gold Coast; and the Home Secretary's Botany Bay is Ireland.” “But would they really give me something,--I mean something he 'd take?” “I have n't a doubt of it, my Lord; I wanted to get rid of a poor relation t' other day, and they made him a Boundary Commissioner at Baffin's Bay. Baffin's Bay!--what fun!” And he laughed immoderately. “How am I to set about this, Twining? You are aware that up to this I have had no relations with politics or parties.”