Part 11 (2/2)

FRANK.--”Eh, Mother?”

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--”And would you run the chance of wounding the pride of a gentleman as well born as yourself by affecting any show of being richer than he is?”

SQUIRE (with great admiration).--”Harry, I'd give L10 to have said that!”

FRANK (leaving the squire's hand to take his mother's).--”You're quite right, Mother; nothing could be more sn.o.bbis.h.!.+”

SQUIRE. ”Give us your fist, too, sir; you'll be a chip of the old block, after all.”

Frank smiled, and walked off to his pony.

MRS. HAZELDEAN (to Miss Jemima).--”Is that the note you were to write for me?”

MISS JEMIMA.--”Yes; I supposed you did not care about seeing it, so I have sealed it, and given it to George.”

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--”But Frank will pa.s.s close by the Casino on his way to the Leslies'. It may be more civil if he leaves the note himself.”

MISS JEMIMA (hesitatingly).--”Do you think so?”

MRS. HAZELDEAN.--”Yes, certainly. Frank, Frank, as you pa.s.s by the Casino, call on Mr. Riccabocca, give this note, and say we shall be heartily glad if he will come.” Frank nods.

”Stop a bit,” cried the squire. ”If Rickeybockey is at home, 't is ten to one if he don't ask you to take a gla.s.s of wine! If he does, mind, 't is worse than asking you to take a turn on the rack. Faugh! you remember, Harry?--I thought it was all up with me.”

”Yes,” cried Mrs. Hazeldean; ”for Heaven's sake not a drop. Wine, indeed!”

”Don't talk of it,” cried the squire, making a wry face.

”I'll take care, Sir!” said Frank, laughing as he disappeared within the stable, followed by Miss Jemima, who now coaxingly makes it up with him, and does not leave off her admonitions to be extremely polite to the poor foreign gentleman till Frank gets his foot into the stirrup, and the pony, who knows whom he has got to deal with, gives a preparatory plunge or two, and then darts out of the yard.

BOOK SECOND.

INITIAL CHAPTER.

INFORMING THE READER HOW THIS WORK CAME TO HAVE INITIAL CHAPTERS.

”There can't be a doubt,” said my father, ”that to each of the main divisions of your work--whether you call them Books or Parts--you should prefix an Initial or Introductory Chapter.”

PISISTRATUS.--”Can't be a doubt, sir? Why so?”

MR. CAXTON.--”Fielding lays it down as an indispensable rule, which he supports by his example; and Fielding was an artistical writer, and knew what he was about.”

PISISTRATUS.--”Do you remember any of his reasons, sir?”

MR. CAXTON.--”Why, indeed, Fielding says, very justly, that he is not bound to a.s.sign any reason; but he does a.s.sign a good many, here and there,--to find which I refer you to 'Tom Jones.' I will only observe, that one of his reasons, which is unanswerable, runs to the effect that thus, in every Part or Book, the reader has the advantage of beginning at the fourth or fifth page instead of the first,--'a matter by no means of trivial consequence,' saith Fielding, 'to persons who read books with no other view than to say they have read them,--a more general motive to reading than is commonly imagined; and from which not only law books and good books, but the pages of Homer and Virgil, Swift and Cervantes, have been often turned Over.' There,” cried my father, triumphantly, ”I will lay a s.h.i.+lling to twopence that I have quoted the very words.”

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