“It's better I should tell you at once,” resumed my father, “that I dislike prodigies. I dislike because I distrust them. The fellow who knows at fourteen what he might reasonably have known at thirty is not unlikely to stop short at fifteen and grow no more. I don't wish to be personal, but I have heard it said Cleremont was a very clever boy.” The impertinence of this speech, and the laughter it at once excited, served to turn attention away from me; but, through the buzz and murmur around, I overheard Cleremont say to Hotham, “I shall pull him up short one of these days, and you 'll see an end of all this.” “Now,” continued my father, “if Eccles had told me that the boy was a skilful hand at sherry-cobbler, or a rare judge of a Cuban cigar, I 'd have reposed more faith in the assurance than when he spoke of his classics.” “He ain't bad at a gin-sling with bitters, that I must say,” said Eccles, whose self-control or good-humor, or mayhap some less worthy trait, always carried him successfully over a difficulty. “So, sir,” said my father, turning again on me, “the range of your accomplishments is complete. You might be a tapster or a jockey. When the nobility of France came to ruin in the Revolution, the best blood of the kingdom became barbers and dancing-masters: so that when some fine morning that gay gentleman yonder will discover that he is a beggar, he 'll have no difficulty in finding a calling to suit his tastes, and square with his abilities. What's Hotham grumbling about? Will any one interpret him for me?” “Hotham is saying that this claret is corked,” said the sea-captain, with a hoarse loud voice. “Bottled at home!” said my father, “and, like your own education, Hotham, spoiled for a beggarly economy.” “I 'm glad you 've got it,” muttered Cleremont, whose eyes glistened with malignant spite. “I have had enough of this; I 'm for coffee,” and he arose as he spoke. “Has Cleremont left us?” asked my father. “Yes; that last bottle has finished him. I told you before, Nixon knows nothing about wine. I saw that hogshead lying bung up for eight weeks before it was drawn off for bottling.” “Why didn't you speak to him about it, then?” “And be told that I'm not his master, eh? You don't seem to know, Norcott, that you 've got a houseful of the most insolent servants in Christendom. Cleremont's wife wanted the chestnuts yesterday in the phaeton, and George refused her: she might take the cobs, or nothing.” “Quite true,” chimed in Eccles; “and the fellow said, 'I 'm a-taking the young horses out in the break, and if the missis wants to see the chestnuts, she'd better come with _me_.'** “And as to a late breakfast now, it's quite impossible; they delay and delay till they run you into luncheon,” growled Hotham.