en
occasion summoned it, hushed the scene by passing the decanter to the
squire, and speaking to him in a low voice.

'Biter's bit.  I've dished myself, that's clear,' said Charley; and he
spoke the truth, and such was his frankness that I forgave him.

He and Janet were staying at Riversley.  They left next morning, for the
squire would not speak to him, nor I to Janet.

'I 'll tell you what; there 's no doubt about one thing,' said Charley;
'Janet's right--some of those girls are tremendously deep: you're about
the cleverest fellow I've ever met in my life.  I thought of working into
the squire in a sort of collateral manner, you know.  A cornetcy in the
Dragoon Guards in a year or two.  I thought the squire might do that for
me without much damaging you;--perhaps a couple of hundred a year, just
to reconcile me to a nose out of joint.  For, upon my honour, the squire
spoke of making me his heir--or words to that effect neatly conjugated--
before you came back; and rather than be a curate like that Reverend Hart
of yours, who hands raisins and almonds, and orange-flower biscuits to
your aunt the way of all the Reverends who drop down on Riversley--I 'd
betray my bosom friend.  I'm regularly "hoist on my own petard," as they
say in the newspapers.  I'm a curate and no mistake.  You did it with a
turn of the wrist, without striking out: and I like neat boxing.  I bear
no malice when I'm floored neatly.'

Five minutes after he had spoken it would have been impossible for me to
tell him that my simplicity and not my cleverness had caused his
overthrow.  From this I learnt that simplicity is the keenest weapon and
a beautiful refinement of cleverness; and I affected it extremely.  I
pushed it so far that I could make the squire dance in his seat with
suppressed fury and jealousy at my way of talking of Venice, and other
Continental cities, which he knew I must have visited in my father's
society; and though he raged at me and pshawed the Continent to the
deuce, he was ready, out of sheer rivalry, to grant anything I