A smile of childish delight proved that the offer was an acceptable one; and carrying off his treasure with him and calling Faust, who on a sign from his master gladly obeyed the summons, he betook himself to the farther end of the room, which was a very large one, and began playing with his canine associate. Leicester gazed at him for a moment or two, and then observed-- “What a sad pity! Such a fine-grown, handsome lad, too! Why, in a year or two he will be a man in appearance, with the mind of a child. Does he improve much?” “Yes, he improves steadily, but very slowly,” returned Lewis. Leicester wandered dreamily up to a chimney-glass, arranged his hair with an air of deep abstraction, pulled up his shirt-collars, caressed his whiskers, then separating the tails of a nondescript garment, which gave one the idea of a cut-away coat trying to look like a shooting-jacket, he extended his legs so as to form two sides of a triangle, and subjecting his frigid zone to the genial influence of the fire, he enjoyed for some minutes in silence the mysterious delight afforded to all true-born Englishmen by the peculiar position above indicated. At length he sighed deeply and muttered, “Heigho! it’s no use thinking about it.” “That depends on what it is, and how you set to work to think,” returned Lewis. “That may do as a general rule,” continued Leicester, “but it won’t apply to the case in point. The thing I was trying to cipher out, as the Yankees call it, is the incomprehensible distribution of property in this sublunary life. Now look at that poor boy--a stick for a plaything and a dog for a companion make him perfectly happy. Those are his only superfluous requirements, which together with eating, drinking, clothing, and lodging might be provided for £300 a year. Instead of that, when he is twenty-one he will come into from £8000 to £10,000 per annum, besides no end of savings during his minority. Well, to say nothing of your own case” (Lewis’s cheek kindled and his eye flashed, but Leicester, absorbed in his own thoughts, never noticed it, and continued), “though with your talents a little loose cash to give you a fair start might be the making of you---just look at my wretched position,--the son of a peer, brought up in all kinds of expensive habits, mixing in the best set at Eton and at Oxford, the chosen associate of men of large property, introduced into the highest society in London--of course I must do as others do, I can’t help myself. There are certain things necessary to a young man about town just as indispensable as smock-frocks and bacon are to a ploughman. For instance, to live one must dine--to dine one must belong to a club. Then London is a good large place, even if one ignores everything east of Temple Bar; one must keep a cab if but to save boot-leather--that entails a horse and a tiger. Again, for four months in the year people talk about nothing but the opera--one can’t hold one’s tongue for four