He apologised with desperate dignity. A merry enough meal ensued; but, throughout, hatred of his own self-sacrificing principles dwelt in him like a jaundice, and he could have pronounced fearful anathema on all the fools of philanthropy who omitted to stock their cellars with nectar and ambrosia against the casual coming of angels. Mr Sheridan supplied a feast of wit, however, and Ned was grateful to him for it. He even revived so far at the end as to beg the honour of providing the ladies with invitations to an Assembly ball that was to be holden in Bury on the Thursday of that same week. Rather to his surprise they accepted with alacrity; and so the matter was arranged. And then, at Mr Sheridan’s request, but unwillingly, he played cicerone to his own domain, and thought at every turn he recognised a conscious pity for his indigent condition to underlie the fair compliments of his guests. When these were gone he sent straightway for his steward, and surprised the good man by an extraordinary jeremiad on the maladministration of a trust that fattened the dependants of a starving lord. He himself, he said, was expected to dress like a bagman and feed like a kennel-scraper, in order that his household might gorge itself disgustingly in silken raiment. He would have reforms; he would have money; he would have the house victualled as for a siege, and grind the faces of the poor did they question his right to drink, like Cleopatra, of dissolved pearls. And then he burst out laughing, and shook the honest man by the hand, and turned him out of the room; after which he sat down by the window and gnawed his thumb-nails.