r friend Macshane's sole profession for
many years; and he did not fail to draw from it such a livelihood as was
sufficient, and perhaps too good, for him. He managed to dine upon it
a certain or rather uncertain number of days in the week, to sleep
somewhere, and to get drunk at least three hundred times a year. He
was known to one or two noblemen who occasionally helped him with a
few pieces, and whom he helped in turn--never mind how. He had
other acquaintances whom he pestered undauntedly; and from whom he
occasionally extracted a dinner, or a crown, or mayhap, by mistake, a
goldheaded cane, which found its way to the pawnbroker's. When flush of
cash, he would appear at the coffee-house; when low in funds, the deuce
knows into what mystic caves and dens he slunk for food and lodging. He
was perfectly ready with his sword, and when sober, or better still, a
very little tipsy, was a complete master of it; in the art of boasting
and lying he had hardly any equals; in shoes he stood six feet five
inches; and here is his complete signalement. It was a fact that he had
been in Spain as a volunteer, where he had shown some gallantry, had had
a brain-fever, and was sent home to starve as before.

Mr. Macshane had, however, like Mr. Conrad, the Corsair, one virtue in
the midst of a thousand crimes,--he was faithful to his employer for the
time being: and a story is told of him, which may or may not be to
his credit, viz. that being hired on one occasion by a certain lord to
inflict a punishment upon a roturier who had crossed his lordship in
his amours, he, Macshane, did actually refuse from the person to be
belaboured, and who entreated his forbearance, a larger sum of
money than the nobleman gave him for the beating; which he performed
punctually, as bound in honour and friendship. This tale would the
Ensign himself relate, with much self-satisfaction; and when, after the
sudden flight from London, he and Brock took to their roving occupation,
he cheerfully submitted to the latter as his commanding officer, called
him always Major, and, bating blunders and drunkenness, was perfectly
true to his leader. He had a notion--and, indeed, I don't know that
it was a wrong one--that his profession was now, as before, strictly
military, and according to the rules of honour. Robbing he called
plundering the enemy; and hanging was, in his idea, a dastardly and
cruel advantage that the latter took, and that called for the sternest
repr