The commissioner was silent with astonishment for some moments after Mr. Percy ceased speaking. He had always thought his good cousin a singular man, but he had never thought him a wrongheaded fool till this moment. At first he was somewhat vexed, for Mr. Percy’s sake and for the sake of his sons, that he refused such an offer; for the commissioner had some of the feelings of a relation, but more of the habits of a politician, and these last, in a few moments, reconciled him to what he thought the ruin of his cousin’s prospects in life. Mr. Falconer considered, that if Mr. Percy were to go into parliament to join their party, and to get near Lord Oldborough, he might become a dangerous rival. He pressed the matter, therefore, no longer with urgency, but only just sufficient to enable him to report to Lord Oldborough that he had executed his commission, but had found Mr. Percy _impracticable_. CHAPTER XIII. However sincere the general pity and esteem for the Percy family, they did not escape the common lot of mortality; they had their share of blame, as well as of condolence, from their friends and acquaintance. Some discovered that all the misfortunes of the family might have been avoided, if they had listened to good advice; others were quite clear that the lawsuit would have been decided in Mr. Percy’s favour, if he had employed their solicitor or their barrister; or, in short, if every step of the suit had been directed differently. Commissioner Falconer now joined the band of reproaching friends. He did not blame Mr. Percy, however, for the conduct of the lawsuit, for of that he confessed himself to be no judge, but he thought he understood the right way of advancing a family in the world; and on this subject he now took a higher tone than he had formerly felt himself entitled to assume. Success gives such rights--especially over the unfortunate. The commissioner said loudly in all companies, that he had hoped his relation, Mr. Percy, who certainly was a man of talents, and he was convinced well-intentioned, would not have shown himself so obstinately attached to his peculiar opinions--especially to his strange notions of independence, which must disgust, ultimately, friends whom it was most the interest of his family to please; that he doubted not that the young men of the Percy family bitterly regretted that their father would not avail himself of the advantages of his connexions, of the favourable dispositions, and, to his knowledge, most _condescending_ offers that had been made to him--offers which, the commissioner said, he must term really condescending, when he considered that Mr. Percy had never paid the common court that was expected by a minister. Other circumstances, too, enhanced the favour: offence had undoubtedly been given by the ill-timed, injudicious interference of Captain Godfrey Percy about regimental business--some Major Gascoigne--yet, notwithstanding this,