"What for?" chuckled the old man. "You'd look so ugly, too, with your nose rubbed off. Tide always rubs their noses off against the barges, and ships, and piers of bridges. Lots of people wouldn't drown themselves if they knew how nasty they'd look when they were dead. I've seen 'em--dozens of times." "Do you find any pleasure in tormenting me?" cried Tom furiously. "Torment you, hey? Not I," chuckled Hopper. "You said you were going to drown yourself--that takes nearly five minutes; and they may fish you out with a boat-hook and bring you to, which they say isn't pleasant. I only, as the oldest friend of your family, suggested a quicker way." Tom turned from the window, and threw himself into a chair. "Ah! you're better," said Hopper, poking the fire up to make it blaze. "Better!" groaned Tom. "Yes, ever so much. You're not fretting about your step-father, but about Jessie: you're in love." Tom was starting up, but the old man forced him back into his chair. "Sit still, you young fool. You are in love, arn't you?" "I suppose so," said Tom bitterly. "I'll give you a dose for the complaint," chuckled the old fellow. Then there was a knock at the door, which he opened, and a neat-looking servant bustled in and spread the table with the snowiest of cloths and brightest of old-fashioned glass and silver, ending by placing the first portion of a capitally cooked dinner on the table, and sending all the cats out of the window into the gutter, where they sat down patiently in a row, to gaze solemnly through the panes of glass till the repast was at an end. "Why, I thought you were very poor!" said Tom, gazing curiously at his shabbily dressed host, as he opened a massive carved oak cellaret, and took out a wine bottle that looked as old as the receptacle. "Hey? Thought I was poor? More fool you!--you're always thinking stupid things. You've gone about nearly two years thinking Jessie don't care for you." Tom started as if he had been stung; but he sank back in his chair, gazing wonderingly at the quaint old fellow, as he opened the bottle to pour out a couple of large glasses of generous fluid; and began wondering how much he knew. "There, you handsome young long-eared donkey!" cried Hopper, placing one glass in the young man's fingers--"that's the finest Burgundy to be got for love or money. That'll give you strength of mind, and blood to sustain, and make you take a less bilious view of things than you do now. Catch hold! I'm an old-fashioned one, I am. Here's a toast. Are you ready?" Tom took the glass, and nodded. "Here's my darling little Jessie. God bless her! and may she soon be happy with the man of her choice." He looked maliciously at the young man as he spoke; but Tom set down his glass untasted. "I can't drink that," he said sternly. "Hey? Not drink it! Why not?" "Because, if she marries my brother, she will never be a happy woman."