Plain John Saltram stands to win that prize." They went into the front drawing-room presently, and heard Mr.Pallinson play the "Hallelujah Chorus," arranged as a duet, with his cousin.

He was a young man who possessed several accomplishments in a small way--could sing a little, and play the piano and guitar a little, sketch a little, and was guilty of occasional effusions in the poetical line which were the palest, most invertebrate reflections of Owen Meredith.

In the Maida-hill and St.
John's-wood districts he was accounted an acquisition for an evening party; and his dulcet accents and engaging manners had rendered him a favourite with the young mothers of the neighbourhood, who believed implicitly in Mr.
Pallinson's gray powders when their little ones' digestive organs had been impaired by injudicious diet, and confided in Mr.Pallinson's carefully-expressed opinion as the fiat of an inscrutable power.
Mr.Theobald Pallinson himself cherished a very agreeable opinion of his own merits.

Life seemed to him made on purpose that Theobald Pallinson should flourish and succeed therein.

He could hardly have formed any idea of the world except as an arena for himself.