"O dear--very sore indeed, sir! Mrs Cherfeuil said that it looked quite like a newly-cut steak." "O it did, did it? but Frank's was not much better," said the senator, turning to his lady. "Indeed it was not," said she, compassionately. "Very well," said Mr ---, very quietly, "I'll tell you this, Master Rattlin, sportsmen as you think yourselves, you and Frank, after all, whatever you both were when you went into the lake, you turned out two _Johnny Raws_." "Why, Master Rattlin," said the lady, "Mr --- uses you worse than the sun--that did but scorch--but he roasts you." "No wonder, madam, as he considers me _raw_," replied I. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. REMINISCENCES--A FRIEND FOUND AND A LINE LOST--RALPH MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE AND A HEARTY SUPPER, BOTH OF WHICH DO HIM MUCH GOOD. Openly admired abroad, and secretly cherished by a love, the more intense because concealed, at home, the course of my days was as happy as the improvement in the various branches of my education was rapid. Nor was I wholly unnoticed by men who have since stood forward, honoured characters, in the van of those who have so nobly upheld the fame of England. The bard who began his career in the brightest fields of Hope, and whose after-fame has so well responded to his auspicious commencement, read many portions of my boyish attempts, and pronounced them full of promise, and the author possessed of _nous_. It was the term he himself used, and that is the only reason why I have recorded it. Indeed, this deservedly great man was, in some sense, my schoolfellow, for he came in the evening to learn French of Monsieur Cherfeuil. He was then engaged to translate an epic, written by one of the Buonapartes, into English verse. I believe that engagement never was carried into effect, notwithstanding the erudite pains Mr --- took to qualify himself to perform it successfully. No man could have laboured more to make himself master of the niceties of the Gallic idiom, and the right use of its very doubtful subjunctive.