Mr Brass¹ on returning home received the report of his clerk with much complacency and satisfaction, and was particular in inquiring after the ten-pound note, which, proving on examination to be a good and lawful² note of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, increased his good-humour considerably³. Indeed he so overflowed⁴ with liberality and condescension⁵, that, in the fulness of his heart, he invited Mr Swiveller to partake of a bowl of punch with him at that remote and indefinite period which is currently denominated ‘one of these days,’ and paid him many handsome compliments on the uncommon⁶ aptitude⁷ for business which his conduct on the first day of his devotion to it had so plainly evinced.

It was a maxim⁸ with Mr Brass that the habit of paying compliments kept a man’s tongue oiled without any expense; and, as that useful member ought never to grow rusty⁹ or creak in turning on its hinges in the case of a practitioner¹⁰ of the law, in whom it should be always glib¹¹ and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance¹² of handsome speeches and eulogistic¹³ expressions. And this had passed into such a habit with him, that, if he could not be correctly said to have his tongue at his fingers’ ends, he might certainly be said to have it anywhere but in his face: which being, as we have already seen, of a harsh and

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