What a nobleman you'd have made, if
you had had the luck to have been born in that station of life!"
"I have found too much trouble, in doing my duty in my humble place,
to wish to be in any higher one."
"So!" thought Tom to himself, "a girl's fancy: but it explains so much
in the character, especially when the temperament is melancholic.
However, to quote Solomon once more, 'A live dog is better than a dead
lion;' and I have not much to fear from a rival who has been washed
out of this world ten years since. Heyday! Rival! quotha? Tom
Thurnall, you are going to make a fool of yourself. You must go, sir!
I warn you; you must flee, till you have recovered your senses."
There appeared next morning in Tom's shop a new phenomenon. A smart
youth, dressed in what he considered to be the newest London fashion;
but which was really that translation of last year's fashion which
happened to be current in the windows of the Bodmin tailors. Tom knew
him by sight and name,--one Mr. Creed, a squireen like Trebooze, and
an especial friend of Trebooze's, under whose tutelage he had learned
to smoke cavendish assiduously from the age of fifteen, thereby
improving neither his stature, nor his digestion, his nerves, nor the
intelligence of his countenance.
He entered with a lofty air, and paused awhile as he spoke.
"Is it possible," said Tom to himself, "that Trebooze has sent me a
challenge? It would be too good fun.
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