A Handsome Allowance

The physician might not have deemed his friend so sensible--or so
insensible--had he known that the young man proposed to make the offer
of that allowance in person. Nor to Sir George Soane himself, when he
alighted five days later before The George Inn at Wallingford, did the
offer seem the light and easy thing, 'Of smiles and tears compact,' it had appeared at Marlborough. He recalled old clashes of wit, and here
and there a spark struck out between them, that, alighting on the flesh,
had burned him. Meanwhile the arrival of so fine a gentleman, travelling
in a post-chaise and four, drew a crowd about the inn. To give the
idlers time to disperse, as well as to remove the stains of the road, he
entered the house, and, having bespoken dinner and the best rooms,
inquired the way to Mr. Fishwick the attorney's. By this time his
servant had blabbed his name; and the story of the duel at Oxford being
known, with some faint savour of his fashion, the landlord was his most
obedient, and would fain have guided his honour to the place cap
in hand.

Rid of him, and informed that the house he sought was neighbour on the
farther side, of the Three Tuns, near the bridge, Sir George strolled
down the long clean street that leads past Blackstone's Church, then in
the building, to the river; Sinodun Hill and the Berkshire Downs,
speaking evening peace, behind him. He paused before a dozen neat houses
with brass knockers and painted shutters, and took each in turn for the
lawyer's. But when he came to the real Mr. Fishwick's, and found it a
mere cottage, white and decent, but no more than a cottage, he thought
that he was mistaken. Then the name of 'Mr. Peter Fishwick,
Attorney-at-Law,' not in the glory of brass, but painted in white
letters on the green door, undeceived him; and, opening the wicket of
the tiny garden, he knocked with the head of his cane on the door.