y mother had some relatives Hedgeworths, they were from Herefordshire.
How odd, Potts, if we should turn out to be connections! You said that
these people were related to you."

"I hope," I said angrily, "that I am not bound to give the birth,
parentage, and education of every man whose name I may mention in
conversation. At least, I would protest that I have not prepared myself
for such a demand upon my memory."

"Of course not, Potts. It would be a test no man could submit to," said
his Lordship.

"That Hedgeworth, who was in the Rifles, exceeded all the fellows I ever
met in drawing the long bow. There was no country he had not been in, no
army he had not served with; he was related to every celebrated man in
Europe; and, after all, it turned out that his father was an attorney
at Market Harborough, and sub-agent to one of our fellows who had some
property there." This was said by Hammond, who directed the speech
entirely to me.

"Confound the Hedgeworths, all together," Ozley broke in. "They have
carried us miles away from what we were talking of."

This was a sentiment that met my heartiest concurrence, and I nodded
in friendly recognition to the speaker, and drank off my glass to his
health.

"Who can give us a song? I 'll back his reverence here to be a
vocalist," cried Hammond. And sure enough, Dyke sang one of the national
melodies with great feeling and taste. Ozley followed with something
in less perfect taste, and we all grew very jolly. Then there came a
broiled bone and some devilled kidneys, and a warm brew which Hammond
himself concocted,--a most insidious liquor, which had a strong odor of
lemons, and was compounded, at the same time, of little else than rum
and sugar.

There is an adage that says "in vino Veritas," which I shrewdly suspect
to be a great fallacy; at least, as regards my own case, I know it to be
totally inapplicable. I am in my sober hours--and I am proud to say that
the exceptions from such are of the rarest--one of the most veracious
of mortals; indeed, in my frank sincerity, I have often given offence
to those who like a courteous hypocrisy better than an ungraceful truth.
Whenever by any chance it has been my ill-fortune to transgress these
limits, there is no bound to my imagination. There is nothing too
extravagant or too vainglorious for me to say of myself. All the strange
incidents of romance that I have read, all the travellers' stories,
newspaper accidents, adventure