The combination of these qualities, with the tact and versatile fluency of a man of the world, was a rare one, and was a source of unceasing surprise to his intimates.

At the present moment he was a diplomatist, since he could not be a diplomat, and to his energetic suggestion and furtherance of the plan he had devised the results which this tale will set forth are mainly due.
Claudius sat upon the sofa watching the old gentleman, and wondering how it was that a stranger should so soon have assumed the position of an adviser, and with an energy and good sense, too, which not only disarmed resistance, but assubjugated the consent of the advised.

Life is full of such things.

Man lives quietly like a fattening carp in some old pond for years, until some idle disturber comes and pokes up the mud with a stick, and the poor fish is in the dark.

Presently comes another destroyer of peace, less idle and more enterprising, and drains away the water, carp and all, and makes a potato-garden of his old haunts.