Look at our friend Audley Egerton. You have just had a glimpse of the real being that struggles under the huge copper;—you have heard the hollow sound of the rich man’s coffers under the tap of Baron Levy’s friendly knuckle—heard the strong man’s heart give out its dull warning sound to the scientific ear of Dr. F vanishes the separate existence, lost again in the flame that heats the boiler, and the smoke that curls into air from the grimy furnace. Look to it, O Public Man, whoever thou art, and whatsoever thy degree—see if thou canst not compound matters, so as to keep a little nook apart for thy private life; that is, for _thyself_! Let the great Popkins Question not absorb wholly the individual soul of thee, as Smith or Johnson. Don’t so entirely consume thyself under that insatiable boiler, that when thy poor little monad rushes out from the sooty furnace, and arrives at the stars, thou mayest find no vocation for thee there, and feel as if thou hadst nothing to do amidst the still splendors of the Infinite. I don’t deny to thee the uses of "Public Life;" I grant that it is much to have helped to carry that great Popkins Question; but Private Life, my friend, is the life of thy Private soul; and there may be matters concerned with that which, on consideration, thou mayest allow, cannot be wholly mixed up with the great Popkins Question—and were not finally settled when thou didst exclaim—"I have not lived in vain—the Popkins Question is carried at last!" O immortal soul, for one quarter of an hour _per diem_—de-Popkinise thine immortality! CHAPTER II. It had not been without much persuasion on the part of Jackeymo, that Riccabocca had consented to settle himself in the house which Randal had recommended to him. Not that the exile conceived any suspicion of the young man beyond that which he might have shared with Jackeymo, viz., that Randal’s interest in the father was increased by a very natural and excusable admiration of the daughter. But the Italian had the pride common to misfortune,—he did not like to be indebted to others, and he shrank from the pity of those to whom it was known that he had held a higher station in his own land. These scruples gave way to the strength of his affection for his daughter and his dread of his foe. Good men, however able and brave, who have suffered from the wicked, are apt to form exaggerated notions of the power that has prevailed against them. Jackeymo had conceived a superstitious terror of Peschiera, and Riccabocca, though by no means addicted to superstition, still had a certain creep of the flesh whenever he thought of his foe.