And, indeed, confoundedly distressed he must have been, for he took his brother-chip, Tom Toole, whom he loved not, to counsel upon his case--of course, strictly as a question of dandelion, or gentian, or camomile flowers; and Tom, who, as we all know, loved him reciprocally, frightened him as well as he could, offered to take charge of his case, and said, looking hard at him out of the corner of his cunning, resolute little eye, as they sauntered in the park-- 'But I need not tell _you_, my good Sir, that physic is of small avail, if there is any sort of--a--a--vexation, or--or--in short--a--a--_vexation,_ you know, on your mind.' 'A--ha, ha, ha!--what? Murdered my father, and married my grandmother?' snarled Sturk, sneeringly, amused or affecting to be so, and striving to laugh at the daisies before his toes, as he trudged along, with his hands in his breeches' pockets. 'I have not a secret on earth, Sir. 'Tis not a button to me, Sir, who talks about me; and I don't owe a guinea, Sir, that is, that I could not pay to-morrow, if I liked it; and there's nothing to trouble me--nothing, Sir, except this dirty, little, gouty dyspepsy, scarce worth talking about. Then came a considerable silence; and Toole's active little mind, having just made a note of this, tripped off smartly to half-a-dozen totally different topics, and he was mentally tippling his honest share of a dozen of claret, with a pleasant little masonic party at the Salmon-leap, on Sunday next, and was just going to charm them with his best song, and a new verse of his own compounding, when Sturk, in a moment, dispersed the masons, and brought him back by the ear at a jump from the Salmon-leap, with a savage---- 'And I'd like to know, Sir, who the deuce, or, rather, what the ----(_plague_ we'll say) could put into your head, Sir, to suppose any such matter?' But this was only one of Sturk's explosions, and he and little Toole parted no better and no worse friends than usual, in ten minutes more at the latter's door-step. So Toole said to Mrs. T. that evening----