Corresponding
with that gentleman's delight at getting rid of him was Mr. Slocdolager's
dismay at his appearance, for fully satisfied that Oxford was the seat of
fox-hunting as well as of all the other arts and sciences, Mr. Waffles
undertook to enlighten him and his huntsman on the mysteries of their
calling, and 'Old Sloc,' as he was called, being a very silent man, while
Mr. Waffles was a very noisy one. Sloc was nearly talked deaf by him.
Mr. Waffles was just in the hey-day of hot, rash, youthful indiscretion and
extravagance. He had not the slightest idea of the value of money, and
looked at the fortune he was so closely approaching as perfectly
inexhaustible. His rooms, the most spacious and splendid at that most
spacious and splendid hotel, the 'Imperial,' were filled with a profusion
of the most useless but costly articles. Jewellery without end, pictures
innumerable, pictures that represented all sorts of imaginary sums of
money, just as they represented all sorts of imaginary scenes, but whose
real worth or genuineness would never be tested till the owner wanted to
'convert them.
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