e, for somehow I did not feel as though I were the
stuff that conquers kingdoms, and yet there must surely be a vast
number of men in life with about the same sort of faculties, merits, and
demerits as I have. There must be a numerous Potts family in every land,
well-meaning, right-intentioned, worthless creatures, who, out of a
supposed willingness to do anything, always end in doing nothing. Such
people, it must be inferred, live upon what are called their wits, or,
in other words, trade upon the daily accidents of life, and the use to
which they can turn the traits of those they meet with.

I was resolved not to descend to this; no, I bad deter-. mined to say
adieu to all masquerading, and be simply Potts, the druggist's son, one
who had once dreamed of great ambitions, but had taken the wrong road
to them. I would from this hour be an honest, truth-speaking,
simple-hearted creature. What the world might henceforth accord me of
its sympathy should be tendered on honest grounds; nay, more, in
the spirit of those devotees who inspire themselves with piety by
privations, I resolved on a course of self-mortification, I would
not rest till I had made my former self expiate all the vainglorious
wantonness of the past, and * pay in severe penance for every
transgression I had committed. I began boldly with my reformation. I sat
down and wrote thus:--

To Mr. Dycer, Stephen's-Green, Dublin.

"The gentleman who took away a dun pony from your livery stables in the
month of May last, and who, from certain circumstances, has not been
able to restore the animal, sends herewith twenty pounds as his probable
value. If Mr. D. conscientiously considers the sum insufficient, the
sender will at some future time, he hopes, make good the difference."

Doubtless my esteemed reader will say at this place, "The fellow could
n't do less; he need not vaunt himself on a commonplace act of honesty,
which, after all, might have been suggested by certain fears of
future consequences. His indiscretion amounted to horse-stealing, and
horsestealing is a felony."

All true, every word of it, most upright of Judges: I was simply doing
what I ought, or rather what I ought long since to have done. But now,
let me ask, is this, after all, the invariable course in life, and is
there no merit in doing what one ought when every temptation points to
the other direction? and lastly, is it nothing to do what a man ought,
when the doing costs exactly the h