puzzled what to choose.  It was vitally important
that the first lines of my letter should secure
the favourable opinion of the reader; by
one unhappy word, one ill-selected expression,
a whole case might be prejudiced. I imagined
Crofton angrily throwing the epistle from him
with an impatient "Stuff and nonsense! a practised
humbugger!" or, worse again, calling out,
"Listen to this, Mary. Is not Master Potts a
cool hand? Is not this brazening it out with a
vengeance?" Such a thought was agony to me;
the very essence of my theory about life was to
secure the esteem and regard of others. I
yearned after the good opinion of my fellow-
men, and there was no amount of falsehood I
would not incur to obtain it. No, come what
would of it, the Croftons must not think ill of
me. They must not only believe me guiltless
of ingratitude, but some one whose gratitude
was worth having. It will elevate them in their
own esteem if they suppose that the pebble they
picked up in the highway turned out to be a
ruby. It will open their hearts to fresh
impulses of generosity; they will not say to each
other, "Let us be more careful another time; let
us be guarded against showing attention to
mere strangers; remember how we were taken
in by that fellow Potts; what a specious rascal
he was—how plausible, how insinuating!" but,
rather, "We can afford to be confiding, our
experiences have taught us trustfulness. Poor
Potts is a lesson that may inspire a hopeful
belief in others." How little benefit can anyone in
his own individual capacity confer upon the
world, but what a large measure of good may
be distributed by the way he influences others.
Thus, for instance, by one well sustained delusion
of mine, I inspire a fund of virtues which,
in my merely truthful character, I could never
pretend to originate. "Yes," thought I, "the
Croftons shall continue to esteem me; Potts
shall be a beacon to guide, not a sunken rock to
wreck them."

Thus resolving, I sat down to inform them
that on my return from a stroll, I was met
by a man bearing a telegram, informing me of
the dying condition of my father's only
brother, my sole relative on earth; that, yielding
only to the impulse of my affection, and not
thinking of preparation, I started on board of a
steamer for Waterford, and thence for Milford
on my way to Brighton. I vaguely hinted at
great expectations and so on, and then approaching
the difficult problem of Father Dyke's letter,
I said, "I enclose you the priest's letter, which
amused me much. With all his shrewdness, the
worthy churchman never suspected how
completely my friend Keldrum and myself had
humbugged him, nor did he discover that our little
dinner and the episode that followed it were the
subjects of a wager between ourselves. His
marvellous cunning was thus for once at fault,
as I shall explain to you more fully when we
meet, and prove to you that, upon this occasion
at least, he was not deceiver but dupe!" I
begged to have a line from him to the Crown
Hotel, Brighton, and concluded.

With this act, I felt I had done with the
past, and now addressed myself to the future.
I purchased a few cheap necessaries for the
road, as few and as cheap as was well possible;
I said to myself, fortune shall lift you from the
very dust of the high road, Potts, not one
advantageous adjunct shall aid your elevation!

The train by which I was to leave did not
start till noon, and to while away time I took
up a number of the Times, which the Goat
appeared to receive at third or fourth hand. My eye
fell upon that memorable second column, in
which I read the following:

"Left his home in Dublin on the 8th ult.,
and not since been heard of, a young gentleman
aged about twenty-two years, five feet nine and
a quarter in height, slightly formed, and rather
stooped in the shoulders, features pale and
melancholy, eyes greyish inclining to hazel, hair
light brown, and worn long behind. He had
on at his departure——"

I turned impatiently to the foot of the
advertisement, and found that to any one giving such
information as might lead to his discovery, was
promised a liberal reward on application to
Messrs. Potts and Co., Compounding Chemists
and Apothecaries, Mary's Abbey. I actually
grew sick with anger as I read this. To what
end was it that I built up a glorious edifice of
imaginative architecture, if by one miserable
touch of coarse fact it could crumble into clay?
To what purpose did I intrigue with Fortune to
grant me a special destiny, if I were thus to be
classed with runaway traders or strayed
terriers? I believe in my heart I could better
have borne all the terrors of a charge of felony,
than the lowering, debasing, humiliating condition
of being advertised for on a reward.

I had long since determined to be free as
regarded the ties of country. I now resolved to
be equally so with respect to those of family.
I will be Potts no longer. I will call myself
for the future—let me see—what shall it be
that will not involve a continued exercise of
memory, and the troublesome task of unmarking
my linen? I was forgetting in this that I had
none, all my wearables being left behind at the
Rosary. Something with an initial P was
requisite, and after much canvassing, I fixed on
Pottinger. If by an unhappy chance I should
meet one who remembered me as Potts, I reserved
the right of mildly correcting him by
saying, "Pottinger, Pottinger! the name Potts
was given me when at Eton for shortness." They
tell us that amongst the days of our exultation
in life, few can compare with that in which we
exchange a jacket for a tailed coat: the spring
from the tadpole to the full-grown frog; the
emancipation from boyhood into adolescence is
certainly very fascinating. Let me assure my
reader that the bound from a monosyllabic name
to a high-sounding epithet of three syllables, is
almost as enchanting as this assumption of the
toga virilis. I had often felt the terrible brevity
of Potts; I had shrunk from answering the question,
"What name, sir?" from the indescribable
shame of saying, Potts; but Pottinger could