great swells of his profession, and he knows the
world a precious sight better than they do. _They_ could tell you if you
have coal, but he will do that and more; _he_ will tell you what to do
with it." It was on the advice thus given Lord Culduff had secured
his services, and taken him over to Ireland. It was a bitter pill
to swallow, for this old broken-down man of fashion, self-indulgent,
fastidious, and refined, to travel in such company; but his affairs were
in a sad state, from years of extravagance and high living, and it was
only by the supposed discovery of these mines on this unprofitable part
of his estate that his creditors consented to defer that settlement
which might sweep away almost all that remained to him. Cutbill was
told, too,--"His Lordship is rather hard up just now, and cannot be
liberal as he could wish; but he is a charming person to know, and will
treat you like a brother." The one chink in this shrewd fellow's armor
was his snobbery. It was told of him once, in a very dangerous illness,
when all means of inducing perspiration had failed, that some one said,
"Try him with a lord; it never failed with Tom yet." If an untitled
squire had proposed to take Mr. Cutbill over special to Ireland for a
hundred pound note and his expenses, he would have indignantly refused
the offer, and assisted the proposer besides to some unpalatable
reflections on his knowledge of life; the thought, however, of
journeying as Lord Culduff's intimate friend, being treated as his
brother, thrown, from the very nature of the country they travelled in,
into close relations, and left free to improve the acquaintance by all
those social wiles and accomplishments on which he felt he could pride
himself, was a bribe not to be resisted. And thus was it that these two
men, so unlike in every respect, found themselves fellow-travellers and
companions.

A number of papers, plans, and drawings littered the break fast-table
at which they were seated, and one of these, representing the little
promontory of arid rock, tastefully colored and converted into a
handsome pier, with flights of steps descending to the water, and
massive cranes swinging bulky masses of merchandise into tall-masted
ships, was just then beneath his Lordship's double eyeglass.

"Where may all this be, Cutbill? is it Irish?" asked he.

"It is to be out yonder, my Lord," said he, pointing through the little
window to the rugged line of rocks, over which the s