It had not that abandon, that hearty self-outpouring, which you might expect would characterize the letters of two such friends, who had been boys at school together, and which did breathe indeed in all the abrupt rambling sentences of his correspondent.

But where was the evidence of the constraint?
Egerton is off-hand enough where his pen runs glibly through paragraphs that relate to others; it is simply that he says nothing about himself,--that he avoids all reference to the inner world of sentiment and feeling! But perhaps, after all, the man has no sentiment and feeling! How can you expect that a steady personage in practical life, whose mornings are spent in Downing Street, and whose nights are consumed in watching Government bills through a committee, can write in the same style as an idle dreamer amidst the pines of Ravenna, or on the banks of Como?
Audley had just finished this epistle, such as it was, when the attendant in waiting announced the arrival of a deputation from a provincial trading town, the members of which deputation he had appointed to meet at two o'clock.

There was no office in London at which deputations were kept waiting less than at that over which Mr.Egerton presided.
The deputation entered,--some score or so of middle-aged, comfortable-looking persons, who, nevertheless, had their grievance, and considered their own interest, and those of the country, menaced by a certain clause in a bill brought in by Mr.Egerton.
The mayor of the town was the chief spokesman, and he spoke well,--but in a style to which the dignified official was not accustomed.

It was a slap-dash style,--unceremonious, free and easy,--an American style.

And, indeed, there was something altogether in the appearance and bearing of the mayor which savoured of residence in the Great Republic.