CHAPTER XXXI.
THE INTERVIEW.
"Go see Sir Robert!
P.—See Sir Robert! hum—
And never laugh, for all my life to come!
Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure ill exchanged for power;
Seen him encumbered with a venal tribe,
Smile without art, and win without a bribe.
Would he oblige me? Let me only find
He does not think me what he thinks mankind.
Come, come! at all I laugh he laughs, no doubt;
The only difference is, I dare laugh out!"—Pope.
It was a small, but luxurious room, the open windows of which looked to a garden sloping down to the river, clear and sunny, as if the metropolis had been an hundred miles away. Pots, crowded with rare and fragrant exotics, were on the terrace, and filled the apartment with their odours, and the walls around were hung with some of the choicest productions
