begging in our city." George sips
his coffee and smiles. Wonderfully clever these editors are, he thinks.
They have nice apologies for public taste always on hand; set the
country by the ears now and then; and amuse themselves with carrying on
the most prudent description of wars.

His own isolated condition, however, is uppermost in his mind. Poverty
and wretchedness stare him in the face on one side; chivalry, on the
other, has no bows for him while daylight lasts. Instinct whispers in
his ear--where one exists the other is sure to be.

To the end that this young man will perform a somewhat important part in
the by-ways of this history, some further description of him may be
necessary. George Mullholland stands some five feet nine, is
wiry-limbed, and slender and erect of person. Of light complexion, his
features, are sharp and irregular, his face narrow and freckled, his
forehead small and retreating, his hair sandy and short-cropped. Add to
these two small, dull, gray eyes, and you have features not easily
described. Nevertheless, there are moments when his countenance wears an
expression of mildness--one in which the quick eye may read a character
more inoffensive than intrusive. A swallow-tail blue coat, of ample
skirts, and brass buttons; a bright-colored waistcoat, opening an
avalanche of shirt-bosom, blossoming with cheap jewelry; a broad,
rolling shirt-collar, tied carelessly with a blue ribbon; a
steeple-crowned hat, set on the side of his head with a challenging air;
and a pair of broadly-striped and puckered trowsers, reaching well over
a small-toed and highly-glazed boot, constitutes his dress. For the
exact set of those two last-named articles of his wardrobe he maintains
a scrupulous regard. We are compelled to acknowledge George an
importation from New York, where he would be the more readily recognized
by that vulgar epithet, too frequently used by the self-styled
refined--"a swell."

Life with George is a mere drift of uncertainty. As for aims and ends,
why he sees the safer thing in having nothing to do with them. Mr. Tom
Toddleworth once advised this course, and Tom was esteemed good
authority in such matters. Like many others, his character is made up of
those yielding qualities which the teachings of good men may elevate to
usefulness, or bad men corrupt by their examples. There is a stage in
the early youth of such persons when we find their minds singularly
susceptible, and ready to give rapi