Here we stand, by no previous appointment or arrangement, three old schoolfellows, in Westminster Hall; three old boarders in a remarkably dull and shady seminary at Saint Omer's, where you, being Catholics and of necessity educated out of England, were brought up; and where I, being a promising young Protestant at that time, was sent to learn the French tongue from a native of Paris!' 'Add to the singularity, Sir John,' said Mr Haredale, 'that some of you Protestants of promise are at this moment leagued in yonder building, to prevent our having the surpassing and unheard-of privilege of teaching our children to read and write--here--in this land, where thousands of us enter your service every year, and to preserve the freedom of which, we die in bloody battles abroad, in heaps: and that others of you, to the number of some thousands as I learn, are led on to look on all men of my creed as wolves and beasts of prey, by this man Gashford.

Add to it besides the bare fact that this man lives in society, walks the streets in broad day--I was about to say, holds up his head, but that he does not--and it will be strange, and very strange, I grant you.' 'Oh! you are hard upon our friend,' replied Sir John, with an engaging smile.

'You are really very hard upon our friend!' 'Let him go on, Sir John,' said Gashford, fumbling with his gloves.

'Let him go on.

I can make allowances, Sir John.