Can't a man like your society, your dinners, your port, your jokes, and your cigars, but he must perforce marry one of your daughters? Is your house to be like a rat-trap, and if a fellow puts his head in must he be caught? I don't like the notion at all; and not the less that it rather throws a slight over certain convivial gifts and agreeable qualities for which, once upon a time at least, I used to have some reputation. As to Tiverton, I like _him_, and I have a notion that he likes _me_, We suit each other as well as it is possible for two men bred, born, and brought up so perfectly unlike. We both have seen a great deal of the world, or rather of two worlds, for _his_ is not _mine_. At the same time, every remark he makes--and all his observations show me that mankind is precisely the same thing everywhere, and that it is exactly with the same interests, the same impulses, and the same passions my Lord bets his thousands at "Crocky's" that Billy Healey or Father Tom ventures his half-crown at the Pig and Pincers, in Bruff. I used to think that what with races, elections, horse-fairs, and the like, I had seen my share of rascality or roguery; but, compared to my Lord's experiences, I might be a babe in the nursery. There is n't a dodge--not a piece of knavery that was ever invented--he doesn't know. Trickery and deception of every kind are all familiar to him, and, as he says himself, he only wants a few weeks in a convict settlement to put the finish on his education. You 'd fancy, from what I say, that he must be a cold, misanthropic, suspectful fellow, with an ill-natured temper, and a gloomy view of everybody and everything. Far from it, his whole theory of life is benevolent; and his maxim, to believe every one honorable, trustworthy, and amiable. I see the half-cynical smile with which you listen to this, and I already know the remark that trembles on your lip. You would say that such a code cuts both ways, and that a man who pronounces so favorably of his fellows almost secures thereby a merciful verdict on himself. In fact, that he who passes base money can scarcely refuse, now and then, to accept a bad halfpenny in change. Well, Tom, I 'll not argue the case with you, for if not myself a disciple of this creed, I have learned to think that there are very few, indeed, who are privileged to play censor upon their acquaintances, and that there is always the chance that when you are occupied looking at your neighbor drifting on a lee shore, you may bump on a rock yourself.