I sometimes used to reflect bitterly enough on the truth of Herbert Spencer's teaching as to heredity, so clearly shown in my own case.

In the year 1683, through the abominable cruelty and harshness of his brother Randolph, this Hugo Wharncliffe, my great-great-great-great-great grandfather, was immured in Newgate, and his constitution was thereby so much impaired and enfeebled that, two hundred years after, my constitution is paying the penalty, and my whole life is thereby changed and thwarted.

Hence this childless Randolph is affecting the course of several lives in the 19th century to their grievous hurt.
But revenons a nos moutons--that is to say, to our lion and lamb--the old brute of a Major and his long-suffering son.
While the table was being cleared, the Major took forty winks on the sofa, and we two beat a retreat, lit up our pipes in the passage, and were just turning out when the postman's double knock came, but no showers of letters in the box.

Derrick threw open the door, and the man handed him a fat, stumpy-looking roll in a pink wrapper.
"I say!" he exclaimed, "PROOFS!" And, in hot haste, he began tearing away the pink paper, till out came the clean, folded bits of printing and the dirty and dishevelled blue foolscap, the look of which I knew so well.

It is an odd feeling, that first seeing one's self in print, and I could guess, even then, what a thrill shot through Derrick as he turned over the pages.