On the following day he went down to Hadley, and, as was customary there, found that he was to spend the evening _tete-a-tete_ with his uncle. Nothing seemed changed since he had left it: his uncle came in just before dinner, and poked the fire exactly as he had done on the last visit George had paid him after a long absence. "Come, John, we're three minutes late! why don't we have dinner?" He asked no question--at least, not at first--either about Sir Lionel or about Jerusalem, and seemed resolute to give the traveller none of that _eclat_, to pay to his adventures none of that deferential awe which had been so well expressed by Mr. Pritchett in two words. But Mr. Bertram, though he always began so coldly, did usually improve after a few hours. His tone would gradually become less cynical and harsh; his words would come out more freely; and he would appear somewhat less anxious to wound the _amour propre_ of his companion. "Are you much wiser for your travels, George?" he said at last, when John had taken away the dinner, and they were left alone with a bottle of port wine between them. This, too, was asked in a very cynical tone, but still there was some improvement in the very fact of his deigning to allude to the journey. "Yes, I think I am rather wiser." "Well, I'm glad of that. As you have lost a year in your profession, it is well that you should have gained something. Has your accession of wisdom been very extensive?" "Somewhat short of Solomon's, sir; but probably quite as much as I should have picked up had I remained in London." "That is very probable. I suppose you have not the slightest idea how much it cost you. Indeed, that would be a very vulgar way of looking at it." "Thanks to your unexpected kindness, I have not been driven to any very close economy." "Ah! that was Pritchett's doing. He seemed afraid that the land would not flow with milk and honey unless your pocket was fairly provided. But of course it's your own affair, George. It is money borrowed; that's all." George did not quite understand what this meant, and remained silent; but at one moment it was almost on his tongue to say that it ought at least to be admitted that the borrower had not been very pressing in his application. "And I suppose you have come back empty?" continued his uncle. George then explained exactly how he stood with regard to money, saying how he had put himself into the hands of Mr. Neversaye Die, how he had taken chambers in the Middle Temple, and how a volume of Blackstone was already lying open in his dingy sitting-room. "Very well, very well. I have no objection whatever. You will perhaps make nothing at the bar, and certainly never the half what you would have done with Messrs. Dry and Stickatit. But that's your affair. The bar is thoroughly respectable. By-the-by, is your father satisfied with it as a profession?" This was the first allusion that Mr. Bertram had made to his brother. "Perfectly so," said George.