spirit of darkness as his best friend, exclaimed,
"I'll tell you what it is, Cushion, I'm
thoroughly cleaned out. I haven't got a
dump!"

"Then you must fly a kite," observed the
Captain, coolly. " No difficulty about that."

This was merely the repetition of counsel
of the same friendly nature previously urged.
The shock was not greater, therefore, than
the young man's nerves could bear.

"How is it to be done?" asked the
neophyte.

"Oh, I think I can manage that for you.
Yes," pursued the Captain, musing, " Lazarus
would let you have as much as you want, I
dare say. His terms are rather high, to be
sure; but then the cash is the thing. He'll
take your acceptance at once. Who will you
get to draw the bill?"

"Draw! " said the Ensign, in a state of
some bewilderment. " I don't understand
these things—couldn't you do it?"

"Why," replied the Captain, with an air of
intense sincerity, " I'd do it for you with
pleasure—nothing would delight me more;
but I promised my grandmother, when first I
entered the service, that I never would draw a
bill as long as I lived; and as a man of honour,
you know, and a soldier, I can't break my
word."

"But I thought you said you had a bill of
your own coming due to-morrow," observed
the astute Spoonbill.

"So I did," said the Captain, taken rather
aback in the midst of his protestations, " but
then it isn't—exactly—a thing of this sort;
it's a kind of a—bond—as it were—old family
matters—the estate down in Lincolnshire—
that I'm clearing off. Besides," he added,
hurriedly, " there are plenty of fellows who'll
do it for you. There's young Brittles—the
Manchester man, who joined just after you.
I never saw anybody screw into baulk better
than he does, except yourself—he's the one.
Lazarus, I know, always prefers a young
customer to an old one; knowing chaps, these
Jews, arn't they!  "

Captain Cushion's last remark was, no
doubt, a just one—but he might have applied
the term to himself with little dread of
disparagement; and the end of the conversation
was, that it was agreed a bill should be
drawn as proposed, " say for three hundred
pounds," the Captain undertaking to get the
affair arranged, and relieving Spoonbill of all
trouble, save that of "merely" writing his
name across a bit of stamped paper. These
points being settled, the Captain left him, and
the unprotected subaltern called for brandy
and soda-water, by the aid of which stimulus
he was enabled to rise and perform his
toilette.

Messrs. Lazarus and Sons were merchants
who perfectly understood their business, and,
though they started difficulties, were only too
happy to get fresh birds into their net. They
knew to a certainty that the sum they were
asked to advance would not be repaid at the
end of the prescribed three months: it would
scarcely have been worth their while to enter
into the matter if it had; the profit on the
hundred pounds' worth of jewellery, which
Ensign Spoonbill was required to take as part
of the amount, would not have remunerated
them sufficiently. Guessing pretty accurately
which way the money would go, they foresaw
renewed applications, and a long perspective
of accumulating acceptances. Lord Pelican
might be a needy nobleman; but he was Lord
Pelican, and the Honourable George Spoonbill
was his son; and if the latter did not
succeed to the title and family estates, which
was by no means improbable, there was Lady
Pelican's settlement for division amongst the
younger children. So they advanced the
money; that is to say, they produced a
hundred and eighty pounds in cash, twenty
they took for the accommodation (half of
which found its way into the pocket of—never
mind, we won't say anything about Captain
Cushion's private affairs), and the value of the
remaining hundred was made up with a series
of pins and rings of the most stunning
magnificence.

This was the Honourable Ensign Spoonbill's
first bill-transaction, but, the ice once broken,
the second and third soon followed. He found
it the pleasantest way in the world of raising
money, and in a short time his affairs took a
turn so decidedly commercial, that he applied
the system to all his mercantile transactions.
He paid his tailors after this fashion,
satisfied Messrs. Mildew and his upholsterers with
negotiable paper, and did " bits of stiff" with
Galloper, the horse-dealer, to a very
considerable figure. He even became facetious,
not to say inspired, by this great discovery;
for, amongst his papers, when they were
afterwards overhauled by the official assignee—or
some such fiscal dignitary,—a bacchanalian
song in manuscript was found, supposed to
have been written about this period, the
refrain of which ran as follows:—

"When creditors clamour, and cash fails the till,
There is nothing so easy as giving a bill."

It needs no ghost to rise from the grave to
prophesy the sequel to this mode of " raising
the wind." It is recorded twenty times a
month in the daily papers,—now in the
Bankruptcy Court, now in that for the Relief of
Insolvent Debtors. Ensign Spoonbill's career
lasted about eighteen months, at the end of
which period—not having prospered by
means of gaming to the extent he
anticipated—he found himself under the necessity
of selling out and retiring to a continental
residence, leaving behind him debts, which
were eventually paid, to the tune of seven
thousand, two hundred and fourteen pounds,
seventeen shillings, and tenpence three
farthings, the vulgar fractions having their
origin in the hair-splitting occasioned by
reduplication of interest. He chose for his