"So they are, I am sure," said Mrs. Windsor, who was come to join in the attack on father; "the last time I was at Brighton, my dear, with all the poor children, how I envied you, dwelling,--as the poet so graphically describes it,--in the sweet fragrancy of home. Mr. Upmore, the air is never empty at any fashionable seaside place; and for the sake of your dear wife, and your wonderfully interesting boy, who is a dear friend of my clever Johnny's, you cannot, with any consistency whatever, refuse to respond to the call of duty; for duty it is, and should be looked at in that light, without a second thought of paltry money." "She has the gift of eloquence," declared her husband; "and sometimes I almost wish she hadn't. It comes to her from her mother's side, whose mother was a celebrated Baptist preacher. And when it is upon her, she has no consideration of other people's money, and not so very much of mine. But you must not take the whole of this for high talk, Bubbly. To make yourself scarce just now, will fetch you a pound, for every penny you have to spend. An old friend of mine is well up the back-stairs; and although he could never do a stroke for me--for some reason, which he explains much better than I can understand it--he whispered to me, last night, 'keep in with the gentleman, who boils higher up the Lane than you do. His fortune is made, if he keeps quiet, and the present Government remains in office. He will have more jobs than he can do, and he must call you in, to help him.' I thought I had better tell you, Bubbly; because we have always been straight-forward; and if you are pulled up in the Police-court, why, you might have to wait months, before you got a contract." My father stood up, for nothing could be more illustrative of true friendship, more incentive to patriotism, and more ennobling to the human race, than this announcement from his brother boiler. He had passed through a good deal of emotion lately, having been not only toasted largely, wherever he appeared with his purse in his pocket, and visited with post-cards more than once (from people whose names were in the papers) but even invited to a hot dinner, which he took care to go to, at the Mansion-House. For that Lord-Mayor was not one of those, who desire to have no successor. "John Windsor, we have always been straight-forward. There has never been the shadow of a doubt between us. Our friendship has never known a cloud upon it;" I was home for the holidays now, and these words of my father's made me stare a little; "you know what I am, John,--a humble Briton, who thinks for himself, and sticks to it. Business is business; politics come in the evening, to smoke a pipe with. When I was a Rad, I may have thought of making something out of it. But I only made a loss of two good hats." "Hear, hear!" interrupted Mr. Windsor; "and now by repulse of the Rads, you have gained three hundred hats, the poet says."