here, and let us have a little
chat together."

"Most willingly, sir," responded I. "Waiter, bring my wine over to this
table." This was the signal for another shout, of which I did not deign
to take the slightest notice.

"I'll wager a hundred oysters," exclaimed one of the party, among whom I
now seated myself, "that I have seen him before! Tell me, my lad,
didn't you ride over the course yesterday, and cut out the work for Mr.
Beatagh?"

I bowed an assent. "Who the devil is he?" cried two or three together;
and my appearance and manner did not check the audible expression of
this sentiment.

"A few words will suffice, gentlemen," said I, "on that head. My father
was an estated gentleman, of small, but unincumbered fortune, which he
lost by an unfortunate speculation; he accordingly went abroad--"

"To Norfolk Island!" suggested one, with a wink.

"Exactly," responded I, "a Colonial appointment; leaving me, like
Norval, not exactly on the Grampian Hills, but in a worse place, in the
middle of the bog of Allen; my sole dependence being in certain legal
studies I had once made, and a natural taste for getting forward
in life; which, with a most enthusiastic appreciation of good
company,"--here I bowed politely all round,--"are, I flatter myself, my
chief characteristics."

After a little, but most good-humored, quizzing about my present
occupation and future prospects, they, with far more politeness than
might be expected, turned the conversation upon other matters,
and kindly permitted me to throw in from time to time my
observations,--remarks which I could see, from their novelty, at least,
seemed often to surprise them.

At length the hour of separating arrived, and I arose to bid the company
good-night, which I performed with a very fair imitation of that quiet
ease I had often studied in the young guardsmen about town.

"What do you bet that he has neither home to shelter him, nor bed to
sleep on, this night?" whispered one to his neighbor.

"What are you writing there, Cox?" said another, to the keen-eyed man,
who was pencilling something on a card.

"There, that's my address, my boy,--12, Stafford Street: Jeremiah Cox.
Come to me about ten to-morrow."

Another, while he was speaking, made an effort to slip a half-crown into
my hand,--a measure I felt it becoming to decline with a prompt, but
courteous, refusal. Indeed, I had so identified myself with the part I
was performing that I flung down my