"The devil take the twaddle," said Jekyl to himself, "he is too old and too fat to be treated after the manner of Professor Jackson; and, on my life, I cannot tell what to make of him.--He is a residenter too--I must tip him the cold shoulder, or he will be pestering me eternally." Accordingly, he walked on, sucking his cigar, and apparently in as abstracted a mood as Mr. Cargill himself, without paying the least attention to Touchwood, who, nevertheless, continued talking, as if he had been addressing the most attentive listener in Scotland, whether it were the favourite nephew of a cross, old, rich bachelor, or the aid-de-camp of some old rusty firelock of a general, who tells stories of the American war. "And so, sir, I can put up with any companion at a pinch, for I have travelled in all sorts of ways, from a caravan down to a carrier's cart; but the best society is the best every where; and I am happy I have fallen in with a gentleman who suits me so well as you.--That grave, steady attention of yours reminds me of Elfi Bey--you might talk to him in English, or any thing he understood least of--you might have read Aristotle to Elfi, and not a muscle would he stir--give him his pipe, and he would sit on his cushion with a listening air as if he took in every word of what you said." Captain Jekyl threw away the remnant of his cigar, with a little movement of pettishness, and began to whistle an opera air. "There again, now!--That is just so like the Marquis of Roccombole, another dear friend of mine, that whistles all the time you talk to him--He says he learned it in the Reign of Terror, when a man was glad to whistle to show his throat was whole. And, talking of great folk, what do you think of this affair between Lord Etherington and his brother, or cousin, as some folk call him?" Jekyl absolutely started at the question; a degree of emotion, which, had it been witnessed by any of his fashionable friends, would for ever have ruined his pretensions to rank in the first order. "What affair?" he asked, so soon as he could command a certain degree of composure. "Why, you know the news surely? Francis Tyrrel, whom all the company voted a coward the other day, turns out as brave a fellow as any of us; for, instead of having run away to avoid having his own throat cut by Sir Bingo Binks, he was at the very moment engaged in a gallant attempt to murder his elder brother, or his more lawful brother, or his cousin, or some such near relation." "I believe you are misinformed, sir," said Jekyl dryly, and then resumed, as deftly as he could, his proper character of a pococurante.