'I know. Not a bit like me. But I am staid and far from calm now. I don't think there is any fear of my old levity breaking out. Do you?' 'No. I think not. I imagine you may rely upon yourself so far.' 'Ay, I may rely on myself, and I may fail, eh, Osborne?' He screwed up his eyes and peered into the face of the other, as though trying to recollect who George was. 'Oh, I am sure you may count on yourself. You are not to fancy my mother is sour or cross-tempered. On the contrary, she is very sweet and wonderfully even.' 'But suppose I made a pun, eh? Wouldn't that be against me? Suppose I bounced out some roaring lie? Suppose I was to rap out some story of my adventures early in life in the slave-trade--' 'Have you ever been in the slave-trade?' asked George apprehensively. 'No, no. My people were Yankees to the backbone, and strong Abolitionists. But suppose I did blurt out that famous adventure of mine when in the slave-trade, upon the occasion of our being pursued by an eighteen-gun British brig? How I, at the head of forty daredevils, boarded the brig, drove the crew before me like sheep--sent all the crew below, battened down the hatches, pulled down the Union Jack and ran up the star-spangled banner of liberty, set fire to the brig, sent her and her eighty-five hands sky high when the magazine exploded, and gave five hundred dollars to build a new church out of the profits of the cargo I then had aboard my own vessel, called the _Niggers' Paradise_. If I told her that adventure, what effect do you think it would have?' 'Disastrous.' 'Disastrous! Ah, then there is but one thing to do. I must take precautions against the chance of making a fool of myself.' George looked up at him inquisitively for a moment. 'And how are you to take precautions against the danger of a too inventive mind and a too inventive tongue?' 'My dear George, you have much to learn. When we are all settled down here--' George shook his head gravely. 'I say,' persisted Nevill, 'when we are _all_ settled down here quietly, I shall take you in hand. I shall become your tutor at a salary of one hundred and fifty pounds a year--you to find rattans for your own chastisement.' 'I shall never need to find others than I now have,' said George quietly. 'Nonsense, Osborne! you want only a few days in the country, and a tonic.' 'Never mind me just now, Nevill, I'd much prefer you would not say anything about me just now.'