“Rat thee, Ned!” he exclaimed suddenly; “thou hast a devilish face!” “’Tis no index to my character, then, sir, I can assure you.” “You needn’t, egad! There’s a shrewd measure of reserve in these matters. Show me a face that’s an index and I’ll show you an ass. But I’d like to learn, as a mere question of curiasity, why you persist in dressing like a cit, eating at beef ordinaries, and sleeping at some demned low tavern over against the Cock and Pye ditch?” “Sure, sir, in this connection at least, you’ll grant me the authority of fashion?” “Fashion! Paris fashion! Franklin fashion! But it’s not for the heir to an English viscountcy to model himself on a Yankee tallow-chandler.” “I model myself on the principles of independence, sir.” “Principles, quotha! Why, ’od rat me, Ned, you make me sick. Principles of independence are like other principals, I presume--clamorous for high rates of interest.” “I think not, indeed.” “Do you, indeed? But you’re a convert to the new religion, and rabid, of course; and a mighty pretty set of priests you’ve got to expound you your gospels.” “Who, for an instance?” The uncle leered round viciously. When he was moved to raise his voice, old age piped in him like winter in an empty house. “I don’t know why I call you Ned,” he protested peevishly. “I don’t feel it, and it fits you worse than your cravat. Who, for an instance, Mr Edward Murk? Why, a defaulting exciseman for one, a reskel by the name of Paine, that writ a pamphlet on Common Sense to prove himself devoid of it.” “According to the point of view.” “Oh, I cry you pardon, sir! I judge from a less exalted one than this patriarch of principles here.” “But Voltaire--Diderot, my lord?” “Gads my life! And now you hev me! A school of incontinent rakes to reform the warld! And not a man of ’em, I vow, but had drained his last glass of pleasure before he set to disparaging the feast.” The nephew was silent. What, indeed, would it profit him to answer? He looked, with a passionless scrutiny, at the face so near his own. He could have thought that the old wood, the old block, had shrunk beneath its veneer, and he had an odd temptation to prod it with his finger and see if it would crackle. “Oxford,” snapped his lordship, “is the very market-garden of self-sufficiency. Thou needst a power of weeding, nephew.” “Oh, it’s possible, sir; only I would clear the ground myself.” “Indeed! And how would you set about it?” “By observing and selecting, that is all; by forming independent judgments uninfluenced by the respect of position; by assuming continence and sobriety to be the first conditions of happiness; by analysing impressions and restraining impulse; by studying what to chip away from the block out of which I intend to shape my own character, with the world for model.”