nd practised shot,--he was almost within arm's length
of his intended victim,--his pistols were the envy of all his Irish
friends. He pulled the trigger,--the powder flashed in the pan; and
the highwayman, not even changing countenance, drew forth a small
ink-bottle, and placing a steel pen in it, handed it to the nobleman,
saying, with incomparable sang froid: "Would you like, my lord, to try
the other pistol? If so, oblige me by a quick aim, as you must see the
necessity of despatch. If not, here is the back of a letter, on which
you can write the draft."

The traveller was not a man apt to become embarrassed in anything
save his circumstances; but he certainly felt a little discomposed and
confused as he took the paper, and uttering some broken words, wrote the
check. The highwayman glanced over it, saw it was written according to
form, and then with a bow of cool respect, returned the watch, and shut
the door of the carriage.

Meanwhile the servant had been shivering in front, boxed up in that
solitary convenience termed, not euphoniously, a dickey. Him the robber
now briefly accosted.

"What have you got about you belonging to your master?"

"Only his pills, your honour! which I forgot to put in the--"

"Pills!--throw them down to me!" The valet tremblingly extricated from
his side-pocket a little box, which he threw down and Lovett caught in
his hand.

He opened the box, counted the pills,--"One, two, four, twelve,--aha!"
He reopened the carriage door. "Are these your pills, my lord?"

The wondering peer, who had begun to resettle himself in the corner of
his carriage, answered that they were.

"My lord, I see you are in a high state of fever; you were a little
delirious just now when you snapped a pistol in your friend's face.
Permit me to recommend you a prescription,--swallow off all these
pills!"

"My God!" cried the traveller, startled into earnestness; "what do you
mean?--twelve of those pills would kill a man!"

"Hear him!" said the robber, appealing to his comrades, who roared with
laughter. "What, my lord, would you rebel against your doctor? Fie, fie!
be persuaded."

And with a soothing gesture he stretched the pill-box towards the
recoiling nose of the traveller. But though a man who could as well as
any one make the best of a bad condition, the traveller was especially
careful of his health; and so obstinate was he where that was concerned,
that he would rather have submitted to the effec