It did me good, to-day, to see that son of yours step out for the last round." "Excuse me--" put in Samuel, pushing a candle aside and craning forward (he was short-sighted) for a better look at the visitor.
"Ha?
You have not heard?
Well, well--oughtn't to tell tales out of school, and certainly not to the Usher: but your mother and I, sir, had the fortune, this morning, to witness a bout of fisticuffs--Whig against Tory--and perhaps it will not altogether distress you to learn that the Whig took a whipping.

I like that boy of yours, ma'am: he has breed.

I do not forget"-- with another bow--"his mother's descent from the Annesleys of Anglesea and Valentia: but she will forgive me that, while watching him, I thought rather of his blood derived from my own great-great-grandfather Robert, and of our common ancestors--Walter, the king's standard-bearer, Edward, who carried the heart of the Bruce to Palestine--but I weary Mr.Matthew perhaps ?" "Not at all, sir," the apothecary protested: rubbing a lump of sugar on the rind of a lemon.

"You will suffer me to mix you a glass of punch while I listen?
I am a practical man, who has been forced to make his own way in the world, and has made it, I thank God.

I never found these ancestors of any use to me; but if one of them had time and leisure to carry the heart of the Bruce to Jerusalem I hope I have the leisure to hear about it.