'But how should I expect to
find you here?'
'There is something in that,' Mr Bloomfield admitted. 'You see I thought
it better that even you should be ignorant of my address; those rascals,
the Finsburys, would have wormed it out of you. And just to put them off
the scent I hoisted these abominable colours. But that is not all,
Gid; you promised me to work, and here I find you playing the fool at
Padwick.'
'Please, Mr Bloomfield, you must not be hard on Mr Forsyth,' said Julia.
'Poor boy, he is in dreadful straits.'
'What's this, Gid?' enquired the uncle. 'Have you been fighting? or is
it a bill?'
These, in the opinion of the Squirradical, were the two misfortunes
incident to gentlemen; and indeed both were culled from his own career.
He had once put his name (as a matter of form) on a friend's paper; it
had cost him a cool thousand; and the friend had gone about with the
fear of death upon him ever since, and never turned a corner without
scouting in front of him for Mr Bloomfield and the oaken staff. As for
fighting, the Squirradical was always on the brink of it; and once, when
(in the character of president of a Radical club) he had cleared out
the hall of his opponents, things had gone even further.
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