And all the while there was a quaint and pathetic consciousness in the
little man's heart that he was meant for something better; that he was
no fool, and was not intended to be one. He would thrust his head into
lectures at the Polytechnic and the British Institution, with a dim
endeavour to guess what they were all about, and a good-natured envy
of the clever fellows who knew about "science, and all that." He would
sit and listen, puzzled and admiring, to the talk of statesmen, and
confide his woe afterwards to some chum.--"Ah, if I had had the chance
now that my cousin Chalkclere has! If I had had two or three tutors,
and a good mother, too, keeping me in a coop, and cramming me with
learning, as they cram chickens for the market, I fancy I could have
shown my comb and hackles in the House as well as some of them. I
fancy I could make a speech in parliament now, with the help of a
little Irish impudence, if I only knew anything to speak about."
So Scoutbush clung, in a childish way, to any superior man who would
take notice of him, and not treat him as the fribble which he seemed.
He had taken to that well-known artist, Claude Mellot, of late, simply
from admiration of his brilliant talk about art and poetry; and boldly
confessed that he preferred one of Mellot's orations on the sublime
and beautiful, though he didn't understand a word of them, to the
songs and jokes (very excellent ones in their way) of Mr.
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