ten all our
former intimacy, in his steeple-chases with Captain Boldero and his duel
with Sir George Grig.

Nothing more was heard of Attwood for some years; a tailor one day came
down to C----, who had made clothes for Jack in his school-days, and
furnished him with regimentals: he produced a long bill for one hundred
and twenty pounds and upwards, and asked where news might be had of
his customer. Jack was in India, with his regiment, shooting tigers
and jackals, no doubt. Occasionally, from that distant country, some
magnificent rumor would reach us of his proceedings. Once I heard that
he had been called to a court-martial for unbecoming conduct; another
time, that he kept twenty horses, and won the gold plate at the Calcutta
races. Presently, however, as the recollections of the fifth form wore
away, Jack's image disappeared likewise, and I ceased to ask or think
about my college chum.

A year since, as I was smoking my cigar in the "Estaminet du
Grand Balcon," an excellent smoking-shop, where the tobacco is
unexceptionable, and the Hollands of singular merit, a dark-looking,
thick-set man, in a greasy well-cut coat, with a shabby hat, cocked on
one side of his dirty face, took the place opposite me, at the little
marble table, and called for brandy. I did not much admire the impudence
or the appearance of my friend, nor the fixed stare with which he chose
to examine me. At last, he thrust a great greasy hand across the table,
and said, "Titmarsh, do you forget your old friend Attwood?"

I confess my recognition of him was not so joyful as on the day ten
years earlier, when he had come, bedizened with lace and gold rings, to
see us at C---- school: a man in the tenth part of a century learns a
deal of worldly wisdom, and his hand, which goes naturally forward
to seize the gloved finger of a millionnaire, or a milor, draws
instinctively back from a dirty fist, encompassed by a ragged wristband
and a tattered cuff. But Attwood was in nowise so backward; and the iron
squeeze with which he shook my passive paw, proved that he was either
very affectionate or very poor. You, my dear sir, who are reading this
history, know very well the great art of shaking hands: recollect how
you shook Lord Dash's hand the other day, and how you shook OFF poor
Blank, when he came to borrow five pounds of you.

However, the genial influence of the Hollands speedily dissipated
anything like coolness between us and, in the course of an