In the mean time his friend Tommy was received amid the circle of the ladies, and attended to as a prodigy of wit and ingenuity. Harry could not help being surprised at this. His affection for his friend was totally unmixed with the meanness of jealousy, and he received the sincerest pleasure from every improvement which Tommy had made; however, he had never discovered in him any of those surprising talents; and, when he could catch anything that Tommy said, it appeared to him rather inferior to his usual method of conversation. However, as so many fine ladies were of a different opinion, he took it for granted that he must be mistaken. But if Harry's opinion of his friend's abilities was not much improved by this exhibition, it was not so with Tommy. The repeated assurances which he received that he was indeed a little _prodigy_, began to convince him that he really was so. When he considered the company he came from, he found that infinite injustice had been done to his merit; for at Mr Barlow's he was frequently contradicted, and obliged to give a reason for what he said; but here, in order to be admired, he had nothing to do but to talk; whether he had any meaning or not, his auditors always found either wit or sense, or a most entertaining sprightliness in all he said. Nor was Mrs Merton herself deficient in bestowing marks of admiration upon her son. To see him before, improved in health, in understanding, in virtue, had given her a pleasurable sensation, for she was by no means destitute of good dispositions; but to see him shine with such transcendant brightness, before such excellent judges, and in so polite a company, inspired her with raptures she had never felt before. Indeed, in consequence of this success, the young gentleman's volubility improved so much that, before dinner was over, he seemed disposed to engross the whole conversation to himself; and Mr Merton, who did not quite relish the sallies of his son so much as his wife, was once or twice obliged to interpose and check him in his career. This Mrs Merton thought very hard; and all the ladies, after they had retired into the drawing-room, agreed, that his father would certainly spoil his temper by such improper contradiction. As to little Harry, he had not the good fortune to please the greater number of the ladies. They observed that he was awkward and ungenteel, and had a heavy, clownish look; he was also silent and reserved, and had not said a single agreeable thing; if Mr Barlow chose to keep a school for carters and threshers, nobody would hinder him, but it was not proper to introduce such vulgar people to the sons of persons of fashion. It was therefore agreed that Mr Barlow ought either to send little Harry home to his friends, or to be no more honoured with the company of Master Merton. Indeed, one of the ladies hinted, that Mr Barlow himself was but "an odd kind of man, who never went to assemblies, and played upon no kind of instrument."