“Not a bit of it. At first sight you might think so; and we certainly have had a very busy time. Send back the fly. Leave your bag at our hotel. Porter, be quick with Lady Castlewood's luggage. One piece of luck befalls me--to receive so often this beautiful hand. What a lot of young fellows now would die of envy--” “I am glad that you still can talk nonsense,” I said; “for I truly was frightened at this great lake, and so many of your houses even standing in the water.” “It will do them good. It will settle the foundations and crystallize the mortar. They will look twice as well when they come out again, and never have rats or black beetles. We were foolish enough to be frightened at first; and there may have been danger a fortnight ago. But since that tide we have worked day and night, and every thing is now so stable that fear is simply ridiculous. On the whole, it has been a most excellent thing--quite the making, in fact, of Bruntsea.” “Then Bruntsea must be made of water,” I replied, gazing sadly at the gulf which parted us from the Sea Parade, the Lyceum, and Baths, the Bastion Promenade, and so on; beyond all which the streaky turmoil and misty scud of the waves were seen. “Made of beer, more likely,” he retorted, with a laugh. “If my fellows worked like horses--which they did--they also drank like fishes. Their mouths were so dry with the pickle, they said. But the total abstainers were the worst, being out of practice with the can. However, let us make no complaints. We ought to be truly thankful; and I shall miss the exercise. That is why you have heard so little from me. You see the position at a glance. I have never been to Paris at all, Erema. I have not rubbed up my parleywoo, with a blast from Mr. Bellows. I was stopped by a telegram about this job--acrior illum. I had some Latin once, quite enough for the House of Commons, but it all oozed out at my elbows; and to ladies (by some superstition) it is rude--though they treat us to bad French enough. Never mind. What I want to say is this, that I have done nothing, but respected your sad trouble; for you took a wild fancy to that poor bedridden, who never did you a stroke of good except about Cosmopolitan Jack, and whose removal has come at the very nick of time. For what could you have done for money, with the Yankees cutting each other's throats, and your nugget quite sure to be annexed, or, at the very best, squared up in greenbacks?” “You ought not to speak so, Major Hockin. If all your plans were not under water, I should be quite put out with you. My cousin was not bedridden; neither was he at all incapable, as you have called him once or twice. He was an infinitely superior man to--to what one generally sees; and when you have heard what I have to tell, in his place you would have done just as he did. And as for money, and 'happy release'--as the people who never want it for themselves express it--such words simply sicken me; at great times they are so sordid.”