disagreeable fell to my lot in the way of
excuse or complaint; but then I had a flood
of compliments on my tact and ability.
When the Tuggenton Railway Company
desired to buy his lordship's land and vote on
very liberal terms, I was sent to negotiate
and show how Sandy Warren they were
obliged to tunnel through was worth a
thousand pounds an acre.

When, previous to his nephew's standing a
contested election at Bloomborough, his
lordship wished his own portrait and memoir to
appear, I was deputed to arrange the materials
with the editor of the Bloomborough
Gazette. And whenever I seemed to hang
back from the constant demands on my time
and temper, an ingenious reference to the bad
health of the deputy-ranger of Bilberry
and the improvements possible in the
lodge, smoothed over my scruples and my
fears.

It was the end of the season; my funds
were reduced to a hundred pounds. The
Morning Muddler told me of the death of
the deputy-ranger, aged seventy-eight, universally
respected. I wrote immediately to Lord
Bloom, and received in reply a scrawl
unsigned, undated, desiring me not to make
myself uneasy.

A week passed. I met my old friend, Sir
John Hustings at a land sale at the
Corner, who exclaimed, on seeing me, "Did
not Bloom promise you the deputy-
rangership?"

"Yes, certainly. You saw the letter?"

"Well, then, you're done, my boy. Look
here. In this letter, dated yesterday, you
see Lord Bloom says: 'that finding Mr.
Dallington's tastes and manners quite unsuited
for so responsible an appointment, he has
no hesitation in bestowing it upon young
Limax.'"

"And pray," said I, very calmly, while I
trembled with suppressed rage, "who is
Mr. Limax ?"

"O, the son of the lawyer to the Riggleton
Railway; the deputy-rangership is a return
for the price Bloom got for his railway.
Young Limax, who was in the 190th Hussars,
and could not make it do, has just sent this
note to Schneiders to keep him quiet, and
Schneiders showed it me to know if it was
right, so I just brought it away. I had, in
reality, long suspected, although I did not
like to own it to myself, that Lord B.'s
polite speeches and warm promises were
merely his way of getting his work done
cheaply.

I was furious, and in despair, and, meeting
Lord Bloom, was foolish enough to tell him
my mind. Whereupon he smiled compassionately,
and protested he was still, as always,
my friend. We parted. What I did, or how
I lived for the next two years, it would be
difficult for me to tell. I was reduced to the
lowest ebb. I even fiddled in a dancing
orchestra, disguised in hair and moustaches.
When I met my father's old coachman,
Andrew Fistler, who had set up in business
as a job-master, he asked me to his house,
and, when I had no home, I became one of
his " turn men," and drove night-flys for
three months. I drove you one night from
the railway station; but you could not
know me through whiskers and mufflers.
Through poor old Fistler's management, I
went to Russia with a string of thoroughbred
horses under my charge, and with two
grooms. Thence, I travelled through
Hungary and Bohemia, and stayed there a year
with Baron Von Horn, as huntsman to a pack
of foxhounds he had exported. I knew little
enough about hunting except riding straight;
but, as he knew less, with the help of
an English feeder who brought over the
hounds, I did pretty well. A scrap of
the Times, which came with the Cheshire
cheese—for my baron was an Anglomaniac
to the extent of cheese and beer, as well as
foxhounds and blood-horses—contained an
advertisement, requesting Richard Dallington,
Esquire, youngest son of the late Peter
Dallington, to call on Messrs. Leasem, solicitors,
Lincoln's Inn Square. I set off with all speed
to England, where the mortgaged farm left
by my father was required by a company who
had opened a coal-mine in the adjoining
estate. This placed me in possession of a few
hundred pounds in ready cash and an income
more than equal to that of a half-pay captain.
With this news came an invitation from an
aunt whom I had never seen, the widow of
my uncle who had died in India, to pay
her a visit at Pumpington—the white-stuccoed
watering-place, where, according to Indian
custom, she had taken up her residence for
the sake of the whist and the waters. The
invitation was accompanied by a bank
note in three figures, for the good old soul
remembered me as six months old, and had,
for a wonder, heard a favourable account of
me from her maid, a niece of my patron
Fistler.

Of course I ought to have been very prudent;
but, somehow, as long as I was single,
prudence and I never travelled long together on
the same road. Give me my little comforts,
a snug lodging, a well-cut wardrobe, a good
horse or two, and a little hunting and shooting.
I could be economical on most other
points, and dine contentedly off a chop with
a glass of ale. But, when I had money, I
could not help indulging myself in my peculiar
weaknesses. Now Pumpington is a place
where fashion combines with fox-hunting,
and where a steeple-chase gentlemen cup is
got up to please the ladies and profit the
innkeepers.

So I cheated myself into thinking that this
visit should be my very last freak. I would
settle down. I would take a farm in Wales
or in Ireland, or I would retire to Germany
or live on my income in some good sporting
district. But, it would be doing most honour