previous evening was revealed before me. My
stupid folly, my absurd boastfulness, my egregious
story-telling—not to call it worse—were all
there; but, shall I acknowledge it? what, pained
me not less poignantly was the fact that I
ventured to stake the horse I had merely hired, and
actually lost him at the play-table.

As soon as I rallied from this state of
self-accusation, I set to work to think how I should
manage to repossess myself of my beast, my loss
of whieh might be converted into a felony.
To follow the priest and ransom Blondel was
my first care. Father Dyke would most
probably not exact an unreasonable price; he, of
course, never believed one word ot my nonsensical
narrative about Schamyl and the Caucasus,
and he'd not revenge upon Potts sober the follies
of Potts tipsy. It is true my purse was a very
slender one, but Blondel, to any one
unacquainted with his pedigree, could not be a
costly animal; fifteen pounds—twenty, certainly
—ought to buy what the priest would call
"every hair on his tail."

It was now too late in the evening to
proceed to execute the measures I had resolved on,
and so I determined to lie still and ponder
over them. Dismissing the waiter, with an
order to bring me a cup of tea about eight
o'clock, I resumed my cogitations. They were
not pleasant ones: Potts a byword for the
most outrageous and incoherent balderdash and
untruth—Potts in the Hue and Cry—Potts in the
dock—Potts in the pillory—Potts paragraphed
in Punch—portrait of Potts, price one penny!—
these were only a few of the forms in which the
descendant of the famous Corsican family of Pozzo
di Borgo now presented himself to my
imagination.

The courts and quadrangles of Old Trinity
ringing with laughter, the coarse exaggerations
of tasteless scoffers, the jokes and sneers
of stupidity, malice, and all uncharitableness,
rang in my ears as if I heard them. All possible
and impossible versions of the incident passed
in review before me: my father, driven
distracted by impertinent inquiries, cutting me off
with a shilling, and then dying of mortification
and chagrin—rewards offered for my apprehension
—descriptions, not in any way flatteries, of
my personal appearance—paragraphs of local
papers hinting that the notorious Potts was
supposed to have been seen in our neighbourhood
yesterday, with sly suggestions about looking
after stable doors, &c. I could bear it
no longer. I jumped up, and rang the bell
violently.

"You know this Father Dyke, waiter? In
what part of the country does he live?"

"He's parish priest of Inistioge," said he;
"the snuggest place in the whole county."

"How far from this may it be?"

"It's a matter of five-and-forty miles; and by
the same token, he said he'd not draw bridle till
he got home to-night, for there was a fair at
Grague to-morrow, and if he wasn't pleased with
the baste he'd sell him there."

I groaned deeply, for here was a new complication,
entirely unlooked for. "You can't
possibly mean," gasped I out, "that a respectable
clergyman would expose for sale a horse lent to
him casually by a friend?" for the thought
struck me that this protest of mine should be
thus early on record.

The waiter scratched his head, and looked
confused. Whether another version of the
event possessed him, or that my question
staggered his convictions, I am unable to say, but
he made no reply. "It is true," continued I,
in the same strain, "that I met his reverence
last night for the first time. My friend Lord
Keldrum made us acquainted; but seeing him
received at my noble friend's board, I naturally
felt, and said to myself, 'The man Keldrum
admits to his table is the equal of any one.' Could
anything be more reasonable than that?"

"No, indeed, sir; nothing," said the waiter,
obsequiously.

"Well, then," resumed I, " some day or other
it may chance that you will be called on to
remember and recal this conversation between us;
if so, it will be important that you should have
a clear and distinct memory of the fact, that
when I awoke in the morning, and asked for my
horse, the answer you made me was—What
was the answer you made me?"

"The answer I med was this," said the fellow,
sturdily, and with an effrontery I can never
forget—"the answer I med was, that the man
that won him took him away."

"You're an insolent scoundrel," cried I, boiling
over with passion, "and if you don't ask
pardon for this outrage on your knees, I'll
include you in the indictment for conspiracy."

So far from proceeding to the penitential act
I proposed, the fellow grinned from ear to ear,
and left the room. It was a long time before I
could recover my wonted calm and composure.
That this rascal's evidence would be fatal to me
if the question ever came to trial, was as clear as
noonday; not less clear was it that he knew
this himself.

"I must go back at once to town," thought
I. "I will surrender myself to the law. If a
compromise be impossible, I will perish at the
stake."

I forgot there was no stake, but there was
wool-carding, and oakum picking, and
wheel-treading, and oyster-shell pounding, and other
small plays of this nature, infinitely more
degrading to humanity than all the cruelties of our
barbarous ancestors.

Now, in no record of lives of adventure had I
met any account of such trials as these. The
Silvio Pellicos of Pentonville are yet unwritten
martyrs. Prison discipline would vulgarise the
grandest epic that ever was conceived.
"Anything rather than this," said I, aloud.
"Proscribed, outlawed, hunted down, but never, grey-
coated and hair-clipped, shall a Potts be sentenced
to the 'crank,' or black-holed as refractory!—
Bring me my bill," cried I, in a voice of indignant
anger. "I will go forth into the world of
darkness and tempest—I will meet the storm
and the  hurricane; better all the conflict of the