"Not a bit of it, Master Grog; that fellow's wide awake, I tell you."
"So much the worse for you, then, that's all."
"Because you're a going to dine with him on Sunday next, all alone. I heard it, though you did n't think I was listening, and I saw the look that passed, too, as much as to say, 'We 'll not have that fellow;' and that's the reason I say, 'So much the worse for you.'"
"Why, what can he do, with all his craft? He can't make me put my name to paper; and if he did, much good would it do him."
"_You_ can't make running against the like of him," said Grog, contemptuously. "He has an eye in his head like a dog-fox. _You_ 've no chance with him. He could n't double on me,--he 'd not try it; but he 'll play _you_ like a trout in a fish-pond."
"What if I send him an excuse, then,--shall I do that?"
"No. You must go, if it was only to show that you suspect nothing; but keep your eyes open, watch the ropes, and come over to me when the 'heat is run.'"
Let us ask our reader to turn for a brief space from these scenes and these actors, and accompany us to that rich plain which stretches to the northwest of Brussels, and where, on the slope of the gentle hill, beneath the royal palace of Lacken, stands a most picturesque old house, known as the Château of the Three Fountains. The very type of a château of the Low Countries, from its gabled fronts, all covered with festooned rhododendron, to its trim gardens, peopled with leaden deities and ornamented by the three fountains to which it owes its name, nothing was wanting. From the plump little figure who blew his trumpet on the weather-vane, to the gaudily gilded pleasure-boat that peeped from amidst the tall water-lilies of the fish-pond, all proclaimed the peculiar taste of a people who loved to make nature artificial, and see the instincts of their own quaint natures reproduced in every copse and hedgerow around them.