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GUY MANNERING.
CHAPTER XII.
Reputation?that's man's idol
Set up against God, the Maker of all laws,
Who hath commanded us we should not kill,
And yet we say we must, for Reputation!
What honest man can either fear his own,
Or else will hurt another's reputation?
Fear to do base and unworthy things is valour;
If they be done to us, to suffer them
Is valour too.
Ben Jonson.
The Colonel was walking pensively up and down the parlour, when the officious landlady re-entered to take his commands. Having given them in the manner he thought would be most acceptable "for the good of the house," he begged to detain her a moment.
"I think," he said, "madam, if I understood the good people right, Mr Bertram lost his son in his fifth year?"
