. You have never made a secret
of our money affairs to me, and I know that if I took my
degree there would never be any necessity for me to practise.
I should therefore have spent five years of my life in
acquiring knowledge which would not be of any immediate
use to me. I have no personal inclination towards medicine,
while I have a very strong objection to simply living in the
world upon money which other men have earned. I must therefore
turn to some fresh pursuit for my future career, and surely it
would be best that I should do so at once. What that fresh
pursuit is to be I leave to your judgment. Personally, I think
that if I embarked my capital in some commercial undertaking
I might by sticking to my work do well. I feel too much cast
down at my own failure to see you to-night, but to-morrow I hope
to hear what you think from your own lips."

"TOM."

"Perhaps this failure will do no harm after all," the doctor muttered
thoughtfully, as he folded up the letter and gazed out at the cold glare
of the northern sunset.

CHAPTER X.

DWELLERS IN BOHEMIA.

The residence of Major Tobias Clutterbuck, late of the 119th Light
Infantry, was not known to any of his friends. It is true that at times
he alluded in a modest way to his "little place," and even went to the
length of remarking airily to new acquaintances that he hoped they would
look him up any time they happened to be in his direction. As he
carefully refrained, however, from ever giving the slightest indication
of which direction that might be, his invitations never led to any
practical results. Still they had the effect of filling the recipient
with a vague sense of proffered hospitality, and occasionally led to
more substantial kindness in return.

The gallant major's figure was a familiar one in the card-room of the
_Rag and Bobtail_, at the bow-window of the Jeunesse Doree. Tall and
pompous, with a portly frame and a puffy clean-shaven face which peered
over an abnormally high collar and old-fashioned linen cravat, he stood
as a very type and emblem of staid middle-aged respectability.
The major's hat was always of the glossiest, the major's coat was
without a wrinkle, and, in short, from the summit of the major's bald
head to his bulbous finger-tips and his gouty toes, there was not a flaw
which the most