red and fifty thousand pounds
to build a hospital, and only five thousand pounds to his sister. The
poor old woman believed some one would marry her when she got the whole
of her brother's money--so I'm told--and when the truth became known,
what did she do? Gad, sir! she wrote a novel abusing her own brother. By
the way, that reminds me of a devilish good thing I heard when I was
here last--down at the inn, you know. What's the name of the girls I was
talking about? Well, her ladyship caught one of them reading a novel,
and not very well pleased with it, and says she to the young lady,
'Don't you like that book?' Then says the girl--let me see what was it?
Gad! I must go and ask her ladyship."

And off he trotted to the drawing-room. He came back in a couple of
minutes. "Of course," said he. "Devilish stupid of me to forget it.
'Why,' said the young lady, 'I think the author has been trying to keep
the fourth commandment, for there's nothing in the book that has any
likeness to anything in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or the
heavens under the earth.'"

"The waters under the earth."

"I mean the waters, of course. Gad! her ladyship was immensely tickled."

"Which of the two young ladies was it, Sir Percy? The younger, I
suppose?" said Mr. Roscorla.

"No, no, the elder sister of course," said Trelyon.

"Yes, the elder one it was--the quiet one; and an uncommon nice girl she
is. Well, there's Captain Walters, the old sea-dog! still to the fore;
and his uniform too. Don't you remember the uniform with the red cuffs
that hasn't been seen in the navy for a couple of centuries, I should
think? His son's got into Parliament now--gone over to the Rads and the
workingmen, and those fellows that are scheming to get the land divided
among themselves--all in the name of philosophy: and it's a devilish
fine sort of philosophy; that is, when you haven't a rap in your pocket,
and when you prove that everybody who has must give it up. He came to my
house the other day, and he was jawing away about primogeniture, and
entail, and direct taxation, and equal electoral districts, and I don't
know what besides. 'Walters,' said I--'Walters, you've got nothing to
share, and so you don't mind a general division. When you have, you'll
want to stick to what's in your own pocket.' Had him there, eh?"

The old general beamed and laughed over his smartness: he was conscious
of having said something that, in shape at least, was like