n a sympathetic voice.
"Ged, sir, it's never too late to begin, and many a man has put in a
very comfortable old age On billiards and whist. Now, if ye feel
inclined to make a start, I'll give ye seventy-five points in a hundred
for a commincement."

"Thank you," said the merchant drily. "It is not one of my ambitions.
Was this challenge the business upon which you came?"

The old soldier laughed until his merriment startled the clerks in the
counting-house. "Be jabers!" he said, In a wheezy voice, "d'ye think I
came five miles to do that? No, sir, I wanted to talk to you about your
son."

"My son!"

"Yes, your son. He's a smart lad--very smart indeed--about as quick as
they make 'em. He may be a trifle coarse at times, but that's the
spirit of the age, me dear sir. Me friend Tuffleton, of the Blues, says
that delicacy went out of fashion with hair powder and beauty patches.
he's a demned satirical fellow is Tuffleton. Don't know him, eh?"

"No, sir, I don't," Girdlestone said angrily; "nor have I any desire to
make his acquaintance. Let us proceed to business for my time is
valuable."

The major looked at him with an amiable smile. "That quick temper runs
in the family," he said. "I've noticed It in your son Ezra. As I said
before, he's a smart lad; but me friend, he's shockingly rash and
extremely indiscrate. Ye musk speak to him about it."

"What do you mean sir?" asked the merchant, white with anger.
"Have you come to insult him in his absence?"

"Absence?" said the soldier, still smiling blandly over his stock.
"That's the very point I wanted to get at. He is away in Africa--at the
diamond fields. A wonderful interprise, conducted with remarkable
energy, but also with remarkable rashness, sir--yes, bedad, inexcusable
rashness."

Old Girdlestone took up his heavy ebony ruler and played with it
nervously. He had an overpowering desire to hurl it at the head of his
companion.

"What would ye say, now," the veteran continued, crossing one leg over
the other and arguing the matter out in a confidential undertone--
"what would you say if a young man came to you, and, on the assumption
that you were a dishonest blackgaird, appealed to you to help him in a
very shady sort of a scheme? It would argue indiscretion on his part,
would it not?"

The merchant sat still, but grew whiter and whiter.

"And if on the top of that he gave you all the details of his schame,
without even waiting to see