Free-livers on
a small scale; who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea; who
call all the waiters by name, touzle the maids, gossip with the
landlady at the bar, and prose over a pint of port, or a glass of
negus, after dinner.
The morning wore away in forming of these and similar surmises. As
fast as I wove one system of belief, some movement of the unknown
would completely overturn it, and throw all my thoughts again into
confusion. Such are the solitary operations of a feverish mind. I was,
as I have said, extremely nervous; and the continual meditation on the
concerns of this invisible personage began to have its effect:--I was
getting a fit of the fidgets.
Dinner-time came. I hoped, the stout gentleman might dine in the
travellers'-room, and that I might at length get a view of his person;
but no--he had dinner served in his own room. What could be the
meaning of this solitude and mystery? He could not be a radical; there
was something too aristocratical in thus keeping himself apart from
the rest of the world, and condemning himself to his own dull company
throughout a rainy day. And then, too, he lived too well for a
discontented politician. He seemed to expatiate on a variety of
dishes, and to sit over his wine like a jolly friend of good living.
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