themselves on the
improved state of the ground they had to walk over.

Now Vernon Wycherley, who had been for some short time turning the
matter over in his mind, began to fancy he had found a poser for his
fellow-traveller, to whom he remarked, that however fortunate they might
consider themselves when they got out of their present difficulties,
there could be no possible advantage whatever in their having gotten
into them.

"I don't agree with you even there," said Frank; "one advantage there
will be on the score of experience, as it cannot fail to furnish us with
an accurate knowledge of what a person's sensations are when he loses
his way in a wilderness of sandbanks in a dark and stormy night in
November."

"And is that all the advantage you can point out?" interposed Mr Vernon
Wycherley.

"All? No, not one-half," resumed Frank. "Will it not supply both of us
with everlasting materials for spinning yarns to match other travellers'
tales, as well as furnish you with an endless topic for your poetic and
dramatic pen? And besides, I've no doubt there are lots of other
advantages we shall eventually derive benefit from, though they may for
ever remain hidden amongst the many mysteries that man is never designed
to know."

"You really are the most extraordinary fellow I ever met with," rejoined
Vernon, "striving, as you ever do, to cook up good of some kind or other
out of the most evil materials; and every misfortune, by some wonderful
philosophy hatched up by your ingenious brain, you pretend to convert
into a benefit. Why, old fellow, Mansel of Trinity actually told
me--mind I've only his word for it, perhaps not the best authority in
the world either--but he positively assured me, that you tried to
convince him that your being taken ill on the third day of your
examination, which was thus cut short in the middle, and which caused
you to rank far lower than you otherwise would have done amongst the
wranglers, was the most fortunate event that possibly could have
happened to you."

"And that is my firm conviction still," said Frank, with the utmost
coolness.

"What!" exclaimed Vernon in amazement, "you surely cannot be in earnest
in what you say?"

"Indeed I am," resumed Frank; "for, had I taken higher honours my dear
old governor would never have rested satisfied unless I had devoted
myself either to study of the law or politics, both of which I hate,
instead of permitting me, at some future time, to bec