fellow on the floor, are his
characteristic pursuits. It is needless to say that he is the
Accountant-General, and the last man in the world to suppose that I
have given myself ten days' privilege leave to the Hills on urgent
private affairs,--_affairs de coeur_, and _affairs de rien_, of sorts.

3.

His head is shaved to the bone; his face, of the Semitic type, is most
sinister, truculent, and ferocious; his filthy Afghan rags bristle
with knives and tulwars. He carries five or six matchlocks under one
arm, and a hymn book, or Koran, under the other. He is in holy
orders--a Ghazi! A pint, or a pint and a half, of my blood, would earn
for him Paradise, with sharab, houris, and all the rest of it.

4.

He was once an exceedingly pleasant fellow, full of talk and anecdote.
We were at school together. He was captain of our eleven and at the
head of the sixth form. I looked up to him; quoted him; imitated him;
lent him my pocket money. Afterwards a great many other people lent
him their money too, and played _ecarte_ with him; yet at no period of
his life was he rich, and now he is decidedly poor. Still the old love
of borrowing money and playing _ecarte_ burns hectically in his bosom,
and with years a habit of turning up the king has grown upon him. No
one likes to tell him that he has acquired this habit of turning up
the king; he is so poor!

5.

She was rather nice-looking once, and I amused myself with fancying
that I loved her. She was to me the summer pilot of an empty heart
unto the shores of nothing. It was then that I acquired that facility
in versification which has since so often helped to bind a book, or
line a box, or served to curl a maiden's locks. She, learned reams of
those verses by heart, and still repeats them. Her good looks and my
illusions have passed away: but those verses--those thrice accursed
verses, remain. How they make my ears tingle! How they burn my cheeks!
Will time, think you, never impair her infernal memory?

6.

I lisp a little, it is true; but, thank goodness, no longer in
numbers. I only lisp a little when any occasion arises to utter
sibilant sounds; on such occasions this little girl, the only child of
her mother, and she a widow, mimics my infirmity. The widow is silly
and laughs nervously, as people with a fine sense of humour laugh in
church when a book falls. This laugh of the widow is not easy to bear;
for she is pretty. Were she not pretty her mockin