Page:Paul Clifford Vol 1.djvu/204

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174
PAUL CLIFFORD.

especially glad we were not discovered, for I liked Bath excessively, and I intend to return there some of these days and retire from the world—on an heiress!

"Well, Paul, shortly after this adventure, I made your acquaintance. I continued ostensibly my literary profession, but only as a mask for the labours I did not profess. A circumstance obliged me to leave London rather precipitately. Lord Dunshunner joined me in Edinburgh. Damn it, instead of doing any thing there, we were done! The veriest urchin that ever crept through the High Street is more than a match for the most scientific of Englishmen. With us it is art; with the Scotch it is nature. They pick your pockets, without using their fingers for it; and they prevent reprisal, by having nothing for you to pick.

"We left Edinburgh with very long faces, and at Carlisle we found it necessary to separate. For my part, I went as a valet to a Nobleman who had just lost his last servant at Carlisle by a fever: my friend gave me the best of characters! My new master was a very clever man. He astonished people at dinner by