THE UNSPEAKABLE GENTLEMAN
briskly burning fire. Closing his book on his forefinger, he waved me to a chair beside him.
"My son," he said, "they mix better than you think, Voltaire and gunpowder. Have you not found it so?"
"I fear," I replied, "that my experience has been too limited. Give me time, sir, I have only been twice to sea. Next time I shall remember to take Voltaire with me."
"Do," he advised courteously; "you will find it will help with the privateers—tide you over every little unpleasantness. Ah yes, it is advice worth following. I learned it long ago—a little difference of opinion—and the pages of the great philosopher"
He raised his arm and glanced at it critically.
"Words well placed—is it not wonderful, their steadying effect—the deadly accuracy which their logic seems to impart to the hand and eye? A man can be dangerous as with twenty pages of Voltaire behind him."
He took a pinch of snuff, and leaned forward to tap me gently on the knee, his expression coldly genial.
"I have read all the works of Voltaire, Henry, read them many times."
[23]
