CHAPTER XXV. 



'* Perhaps a recruit might chance to shoot great General 

 Boneypar-tee." 



So sang the poet somewhere about the date of the Penin- 

 sular War, and of course it was within the bounds of 

 possibility. 



Mrs. Barlow was the recruit, and her random shot " If 

 you don't live different, Mr. Bickersdyke, the chances arc 

 you never will inherit nothing ". 



Whether it was the heavy charge of negatives which drove 

 the argument home, like repeated blows of a hammer, 

 matters not ; the fact remains that it brought Victor Bickers- 

 dyke up all standing. 



The soundest arguments fail to convince an individual 

 who is weak enough to allow his libations to undermine his 

 common-sense. "Very good advice, I know you are right," 

 he will say in reply to warnings patent to every one but 

 himself; but however deep the reasoning, the thrusts will 

 fail in their effect. 



Victor Bickersdyke had no familiar friend in whom he 

 trusted immediately at hand. His legacy in the present, 

 and his dead certainty, as he thought, in the future, had 

 destroyed any carking cares in the shape of ways and 

 means. He was often wont to air his prospects in the bar 

 parlour of the Duchy Arms, and the shadow of ill-usage^ 

 in the past, rather than the substance of many neglected 

 opportunities, hovered round him, until he felt justified in 

 being satisfied with the prospect of turning the tables. 



On the occasion when Mrs. Barlow's warning took the 

 form of the sound words mentioned above, Victor lapsed into 



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