Now this Custom-house money had redressed all that. Bill, who was sure to have his way in the end, as he always had done hitherto, was welcome to have it at once, with the blessing of the slaying and the boiling interest. I alone was to be left in the cold; and sympathy was felt for me, whenever I was present. But no sooner was I gone, than I found out once, by coming back sharply for my walking-stick, that everybody laughed, and made a good joke of it; as if I had been served quite right, and taught not to give myself airs--which I am sure I never did! And this imbued me with such a sense of wrong, that I declined to be the bride's best man at the wedding, any more than I would be Bill's bridesmaid; and instead of feeling any envy for him, I was sorry; being morally certain that he would pay out for it. For Polly Windsor's mother had a temper of her own; as my dear father (a very sound judge of women) had said in my presence, at least fifty times, when she had taken up her glass with her gloves on, a thing no right-minded woman ever thinks of doing. And such things can seldom, or I might say never, be thrown off in the female line. However, it was no concern of mine, what sort of a handful Bill Chumps had got; and the public will perceive, that I should not have gone into this question at all, as I have been obliged to do, except for the stories put about, concerning my share in the matter--which, as you see, was none! But no sooner does a man become highly distinguished in politics--as I have been compelled to do--than everything he has handled (from the time he used his coral) is raked up, and ransacked, and rifled against him. Fifty times, have I been charged at elections, and five times in the House itself, by Irish members, with having jilted the daughter of a brother, and far superior, soap-maker to my father! It is below my dignity, to explain such matters, at the crisis of a very important debate, or even when they are throwing eggs at me. But I do hope, that now having set down the facts, with every word ready to be sworn to, I have heard the last of that vile calumny. FOOTNOTE: [2] Alas that the newest, and perhaps noblest, of all scientific discoveries--the doctrine of creation by eccnesis--cannot be claimed by an English, or even--as _a priori_ should have been--a learned Scotch professor, but passes to the credit of a French _savant_, hitherto unknown, but now immortal. CHAPTER XXXI. FREE TRADE. When one has been wronged by the outer world, the sooner he gets back to the bosom of his family, the likelier will he be to bear it well; and as soon as the Champagne was finished, I made off. It was useless to be in any hurry with old _Grip_, for he knew how undignified it is to pant, though the formal cause thereof be portliness; so that by the time we both got back to "Placid Bower," my mother had been at home more than an hour, and had packed Uncle William off to bed.