CHAPTER XIII.
A VISIT FROM THE GREAT MAN OF THE FAMILY.
From that day I became Mr.Moncton's factotum, his confidential clerk, and principal agent.

In all matters that required prompt and skilful management, he invariably employed me.
If he did not regard me with affection, for that was foreign to his nature, he respected my abilities, and placed the greatest reliance on my principles.

I attended him in most of his professional journeys, and was present in every court in which he had an important case.

I no sooner appeared with him in public than I became a person of considerable consequence among his friends and acquaintances, and invitations flowed in upon me from all quarters.

One thing appeared very certain, that the same persons who had despised the shabbily-dressed lawyer's clerk, no longer regarded me with cold eyes as a _poor relation_, but were among the first to overwhelm me with civilities; and, for a while, I was intoxicated with the adulation I received from the world and its smooth-tongued votaries.
Three months glided rapidly away, and every day added to my self-importance, and brought with it fresh opportunities of enlarging the circle of my friends, and of acquiring a competent knowledge of the conventional rules of society.