ounds annually--for five years--he has acquired about
five and twenty guineas' worth of classical leeterature--enough, I dare
say, to enable him to quote Horace respectably through life, and what
more do you want from a young man of his expectations? I think I should
send him into the army, that's the best place for him--there's the least
to do and the handsomest clothes to wear," says the little wag, daintily
taking up the tail of his friend's coat. "In earnest now, Tom Newcome, I
think your boy is as fine a lad as I ever set eyes on. He seems to have
intelligence and good temper. He carries his letter of recommendation in
his countenance; and with the honesty--and the rupees, mind ye,--which he
inherits from his father, the deuce is in it if he can't make his way.
What time's the breakfast? Eh, but it was a comfort this morning not to
hear the holystoning on the deck. We ought to go into lodgings, and not
fling our money out of the window of this hotel. We must make the young
chap take us about and show us the town in the morning, eh, Colonel?"

With this the jolly gentleman nodded over his candle to his friend, and
trotted off to bed.

The Colonel and his friend were light sleepers and early risers. The next
morning when Binnie entered the sitting-room he found the Colonel had
preceded him. "Hush," says the Colonel, putting a long finger up to his
mouth, and advancing towards him as noiselessly as a ghost.

"What's in the wind now?" asks the little Scot; "and what for have ye not
got your shoes on?"

"Clive's asleep," says the Colonel, with a countenance full of
extreme anxiety.

"The darling boy slumbers, does he?" said the wag. "Mayn't I just step in
and look at his beautiful countenance whilst he's asleep, Colonel?"

"You may if you take off those confounded creaking, shoes," the other
answered, quite gravely: and Binnie turned away to hide his jolly round
face, which was screwed up with laughter.

"Have ye been breathing a prayer over your rosy infant's slumbers, Tom?"
asks Mr. Binnie.

"And if I have, James Binnie," the Colonel said gravely, and his sallow
face blushing somewhat, "if I have I hope I've done no harm. The last
time I saw him asleep was nine years ago, a sickly little pale-faced
boy, in his little cot, and now, sir, that I see him again, strong and
handsome and all that a fond father can wish to see a boy, I should be an
ungrateful villain, James, if I didn't do what you said just now, and