The offices were famous amongst men in the iron trade, and once or twice Mr. Tallant began to think they were getting a name politically; for several deputations had waited upon him there soliciting him to come forward for various boroughs at general elections. But Mr. Christopher Tallant always said his ambition did not lie that way. Some day perhaps his son Dick might like to go into the House, and if he did, why go he should of course; but there was plenty of time to think about that; and so the deputations retired, wishing, in most cases, that there were not plenty of time to think about that, for there was gold indeed at the back of Christopher Tallant. “By gad, you amuse me,” said Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs, a college acquaintance of Mr. Richard Tallant’s, looking at the pictorial treasures of the room through an eye-glass. “To think of your going in for engines and machines, with idiotic cranks, and all that sort of thing. ’Pon my soul, it’s too funny.” And Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs turned round, showed Mr. Richard Tallant his teeth, and said “haw, haw.” That was the way Mr. Gibbs laughed: that was how he laughed at Oxford, when a broken-hearted girl appealed to his sense of honour; that was how he laughed when he won two thousand pounds at Loo from a college friend, who said he was ruined, and threatened to throw himself into the Isis; that was how he laughed under all circumstances. “One must put a sign of some sort up,” said Mr. Richard Tallant, twirling his moustache, and stretching his legs under the big library table. “What will you take, Shuff?” “Anything you intend taking yourself, old boy; you are a pretty good judge; I’ll trust to your sense of what a fellow’s morning draught should be,” said Mr. Gibbs, grinning again, and saying “haw, haw” as before. Mr. Tallant, junior, struck a gong upon the table, and a sober-looking old man in a dark livery obeyed the summons. “Sherry, Thomas,” said Mr. Richard. Thomas taking up a bunch of keys from the table, unlocked a cupboard by the fireplace, and carefully uncorked a dusty, black looking bottle, and set it before Mr. Tallant’s only son, with a couple of richly cut glasses. Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs took a seat by the window, commended the wine as he drank it, and criticised any woman who chanced to pass on the other side of the street. He was not a beauty himself that he should be so critical of the looks of others. He had weak eyes, and shaky legs, a short cough, and a narrow chest. His enemies said he wore stays, and slept in gloves, to improve his figure and whiten his hands, which were naturally red, like his face, that was powdered after the manner of women. He was a man of fashion nevertheless, and had sprung of a noble stock; but the race flickered its last in him, and the estates had been divided by Jews in his grandfather’s time.