ervice for ever, and I have no doubt will sell his uniform
a bargain. The Government had HIM a bargain certainly; nor is he by any
means the first person who has been sold at that price.

Well, my worthy friend met me in the street and informed me of these
facts with a smiling countenance,--which I thought a masterpiece of
diplomacy. Fortune had been belaboring and kicking him for ten whole
years, and here he was grinning in my face: could Monsieur de Talleyrand
have acted better? "I have given up diplomacy," said Protocol, quite
simply and good-humoredly, "for between you and me, my good fellow, it's
a very slow profession; sure, perhaps, but slow. But though I gained
no actual pecuniary remuneration in the service, I have learned all
the languages in Europe, which will be invaluable to me in my new
profession--the mercantile one--in which directly I looked out for a
post I found one."

"What! and a good pay?" said I.

"Why, no; that's absurd, you know. No young men, strangers to business,
are paid much to speak of. Besides, I don't look to a paltry clerk's
pay. Some day, when thoroughly acquainted with the business (I shall
learn it in about seven years), I shall go into a good house with my
capital and become junior partner."

"And meanwhile?"

"Meanwhile I conduct the foreign correspondence of the eminent house of
Jam, Ram, and Johnson; and very heavy it is, I can tell you. From nine
till six every day, except foreign post days, and then from nine till
eleven. Dirty dark court to sit in; snobs to talk to,--great change, as
you may fancy."

"And you do all this for nothing?"

"I do it to learn the business." And so saying Protocol gave me a
knowing nod and went his way.

Good heavens! I thought, and is this a true story? Are there hundreds
of young men in a similar situation at the present day, giving away the
best years of their youth for the sake of a mere windy hope of something
in old age, and dying before they come to the goal? In seven years he
hopes to have a business, and then to have the pleasure of risking his
money? He will be admitted into some great house as a particular favor,
and three months after the house will fail. Has it not happened to a
thousand of our acquaintance? I thought I would run after him and tell
him about the new professions that I have invented.

"Oh! ay! those you wrote about in Fraser's Magazine. Egad! George,
Necessity makes strange fellows of us all. Who would ever hav