How he learned to know tailors, shoemakers, and tobacconists, and distinguish them from the rest of mankind, and how he recognized them as natural enemies, I cannot say. As for Se well, he always spoke of the gift as the very strongest evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory, and declared it was the prospective sense of troubles to come that suggested the instinct. The chalk head, the portrait Lucy had made of Sir Brook, still hung over the fireplace. It would be a curious subject of inquiry to know why Sewell suffered it still to hold its place there. If there was a man in the world whom he thoroughly hated, it was Fossbrooke. If there was one to injure whom he would have bartered fortune and benefit to himself, it was he. And how came it that he could bear to have this reminder of him so perpetually before his eyes?--that the stern features should be ever bent upon him,--darkly, reproachfully lowering, as he had often seen them in life? If it were simply that his tenure of the place was insecure, what so easy as to replace the picture, and why should he endure the insult of its presence there? No, there was some other reason,--some sentiment stronger than a reason,--some sense of danger in meddling with that man in any shape. Over and over again he vowed to himself he would hang it against a tree, and make a pistol-mark of it. Again and again he swore that he would destroy it; he even drew out his penknife to sever the head from the neck, significant sign of how he would like to treat the original; but yet he had replaced his knife, and repressed his resolve, and sat down again to brood over his anger inoperative. To frown at the “old rascal,” as he loved to call him,--to menace him with his fist as he passed,--to scowl at him as he sat before the fire, were, after all, the limits of his wrath; but still the picture exerted a certain influence over him, and actually inspired a sense of fear as well as a sense of hatred. Am I imposing too much on my reader's memory by asking him to recall a certain Mr. O'Reardon, in whose humble dwelling at Cullen's Wood Sir Brook Fossbrooke was at one time a lodger? Mr. O'Reardon, though an official of one of the law courts, and a patriot by profession, may not have made that amount of impression necessary to retain a place in the reader's recollection, nor indeed is it my desire to be exacting on this head. He is not the very best of company, and we shall not see much of him. When Sewell succeeded to the office of Registrar, which the old Judge carried against the Castle with a high hand, he found Mr. O'Reardon there; he had just been promoted to the rank of keeper of the waiting-room. In the same quick glance with which the shrewd Colonel was wont to single out a horse, and knew the exact sort of quality he possessed, he read this man, and saw with rapid intelligence the stuff he was made of, and the sort of service he could render.