foreign freaks—every one of which I undertake to contend had a defensible motive—were merely the common effect of that fashionable conceit and supercilious levity which are the qualities the French have, in general, a right to take as a sample of English manners.
All affairs at Nancy being properly settled, Charles began to be very impatient for their departure to Lyons. Before they set out, however, he drew up a recapitulation of all his other letters, to which he added many earnest entreaties; and,

that it might be sure to go safe, entrusted it to the care of Figgins himself, who insisted upon putting it in the post office, swearing he began to suspect every body; and, when he returned, said that Master John should not be so confidently trusted for the future.
'Why so?' said Charles.
'Nay no great matter,' answered Figgins.
'I begin to have my suspicions of him: but perhaps these devils of women have corrupted him.'

Charles asked his friend what induced his suspicions. Figgins said,
'I caught the rascal in a lie, that is all: which I cannot bear. Dam'me if there is so pimping a thing upon earth as an unnecessary lie.'
'From a person in whom you place confidence,' said Charles, 'there cannot be a crime of such magnitude. As death is better than torture, so open enmity is better than hidden deceit. Even a trifling lie, in such circumstances, may conceal the most tremendous consequences. For my part, I look upon plain integrity to be so positively essential in the composition of a friend, that though I were one mass of imperfections, I would forgive the continual reiteration of them, both to myself and the world, rather than they should be hyperbolically glossed over. On the contrary, if I thought the man I

trusted could even meditate a wish to deceive me, let my partiality be what it might, I would tear him from my heart, even though it should burst in making the effort.'

Figgins, who had eyed our hero with extraordinary tokens of amazement, while he animatedly pronounced these words, first looked pale, then red, but recovered however in time to put in for his share of this honest opinion; and, after an eulogium on Charles's way of thinking, and reflecting on John, who alone he chose to understand as the person all this warmth was levelled at, he finished his remark with
'Damn the fellow, I should be sorry to find him a rascal, for I have a regard for him.