l.'

"The old man threw his spectacles up on his forehead, wiped his eyes,
and then, replacing his glasses, took a deliberate survey of the poor
lieutenant who had proposed such a very 'soft' bargain. 'Eh! Clinchet,'
said he to the attorney, 'can we do this for him?'

"'Nothing easier, sir; let the gentleman come in last, as residuary
legatee, and it alters nothing.'

"'I suppose you count on your good luck,' said old Browne, grinning.

"'Oh, then, it's not from my great experience that way.' said Cashel.
'I 've been on the "Duke's list" for promotion seventeen years already,
and, for all I see, not a bit nearer than the first day; but there's no
reason my poor boy should be such an unfortunate devil. Who knows but
fortune may make amends to him one of these days? Come, sir, is it a
bargain?'

"'To be sure. I 'm quite willing; only don't forget the Constantia. It's
a wine I like a glass of very well indeed, after my dinner.'

"The remainder is easily told; the lieutenant sailed for the Cape,
and kept his word, even though it cost him a debt that mortgaged his
commission. Old Browne gave a great dinner when the wine arrived, and
the very first name on the list of legatees, his nephew, caught a fever
on his way home from it, and died in three weeks.

"Kennyfeck could tell us, if he were here, what became of each of them
in succession; four were lost, out yachting, at once; but, singular as
it may seem, in nineteen years from the day of that will, every life
lapsed, and, stranger still, without heirs; and the fortune has now
descended to poor Godfrey Cashel's boy, the lieutenant himself having
died in the West Indies, where he exchanged into a native regiment. That
is the whole story; and probably in a romance one would say that the
thing was exaggerated, so much more strange is truth than fiction."

"And what kind of education did the young man get?"

"I suppose very little, if any. So long as his father lived, he of
course held the position of an officer's son,--poor, but in the rank of
gentleman. After that, without parents,--his mother died when he was an
infant,--he was thrown upon the world, and, after various vicissitudes,
became a cabin boy on board of a merchantman; then he was said to be a
mate of a vessel in the African trade employed on the Gold Coast,--just
as probably a slaver; and, last of all, he was lieutenant in the
Columbian navy,--which, I take it, is a very good name for piracy. It
was in the