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212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

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514 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP<br />

Saturday,' I feel inclined to throw him or myself into the trough<br />

over the palings. Do you know that that man put that hand into<br />

his pocket and offered me some filberts ?"<br />

Here I own the lady to whom Philip was addressing himself<br />

turned pale and shuddered.<br />

" I can no more be that man's friend que celui du domestique<br />

qui vient d'apporter le what-d'you-call-'em ? le coal-scuttle "—(John<br />

entered the room with that useful article during Philip's oration—<br />

and we allowed the elder children to laugh this time, for the fact is,<br />

none of us knew the French for coal-scuttle, and I will wager there<br />

is no such word in Chambaud). " This holding back is not arrogance,"<br />

Philip went on. " This reticence is not want of humility.<br />

To serve that man honestly is one thing; to make friends with<br />

him, to laugh at his dull jokes, is to make friends with the mammon<br />

of unrighteousness, is subserviency and hypocrisy on my part. I<br />

ought to say to him, Mr. Mugford, I will give you my work for<br />

your wage ; I will compile your paper, I will produce an agreeable<br />

miscellany containing proper proportions of news, politics, and<br />

scandal, put titles to your paragraphs, see the Pall Mall Gazette<br />

ship-shape through the press, and go home to my wife and<br />

dinner. You are my employer, but you arc not my friend, and<br />

_________ bless my soul ! there is five o'clock striking !" (<strong>The</strong><br />

time-piece in our drawing-room gave that announcement as he was<br />

speaking.) " We have what Mugford calls a white-choker dinner<br />

to-day, in honour of the pig!" And with this Philip plunges<br />

out of the house, and I hope reached Hampstead in time for the<br />

entertainment.<br />

Philip's friends in Westminster felt no little doubt about his<br />

prospects, and the Little Sister shared their alarm. "<strong>The</strong>y are<br />

not fit to be with those folks," Mrs. Brandon said, " though as<br />

for Mrs. Philip, dear thing, I am sure nobody can ever quarrel<br />

with her. With me it's different. I never had no education, you<br />

know—no more than the Mugfords, but I don't like to see my<br />

Philip sittin' down as if he was the guest and equal of that fellar."<br />

Nor indeed did it ever enter "that fellar's" head that Mr.<br />

Frederick Mugford could be Mr. Philip Finnin's equal. With our<br />

knowledge of the two men, then, we all dismally looked forward<br />

to a rupture between Firmin and his patron.<br />

As for the New York journal, we were more easy in respect<br />

to Philip's success in that quarter. Several of his friends made<br />

a vow to help him. We clubbed club-stories; we begged from<br />

our polite friends anecdotes (that would bear sea-transport) of the<br />

fashionable world. We happened to overhear the most remarkable<br />

conversations between the most influential public characters who

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