prove it all to ye."

Something in his voice made Franklin wheel around and look at him.
"Oh, do be serious, Battersleigh," said he.

"It's sayrious I am, Ned, I till ye. Luk at me, boy. Do ye not see
the years droppin' from me? Succiss! Revinge! Cash! Earth holds no
more for Batty. I've thim all, an' I'm contint. This night I retire
dhrunk, as a gintleman should be. To-morrow I begin on me wardrobe.
I'm goin' a longish journey, lad, back to ould England. I'm a
long-lost son, an' thank God! I've not been discovered yit, an' hope
I'll not be fer a time.

"I'll till ye a secret, which heretofore I've always neglicted to
mintion to anybody. Here I'm Henry Battersleigh, agent of the
British-American Colonization Society. On t'other side I might be
Cuthbert Allen Wingate-Galt. An' Etcetera, man; etcetera, to God knows
what. Don't mintion it, Ned, till I've gone away, fer I've loved the
life here so--I've so enjoyed bein' just Batty, agent, and so forth!
Belave me, Ned, it's much comfortabler to be merely a' And-so-forth
thin it is to be an' Etcetera. An' I've loved ye so, Ned! Ye're the
noblest nobleman I ivver knew or ivver expict to know."

Franklin sat gazing at him without speech, and presently Battersleigh
went on.

"It's a bit of a story, lad," said he kindly. "Ye see, I've been a
poor man all me life, ye may say, though the nephew of one of the
richest women in the United Kingdom--an' the stingiest. Instid of
doin' her obvayus juty an' supportin' her nephew in becomin' station,
she marries a poor little lordlet boy, an' forsakes me entirely.
Wasn't it hijjus of her? There may have been raysons satisfyin' to her
own mind, but she nivver convinced me that it was Christian conduct on
her part. So I wint with the Rile Irish, and fought fer the Widdy. So
what with likin' the stir an' at the same time the safety an' comfort
o' the wars, an' what with now an' thin a flirtashun in wan colour or
another o' the human rainbow, with a bit of sport an' ridin' enough to
kape me waist, I've been in the Rile Irish ivver since--whin not
somewhere ilse; though mostly, Ned, me boy, stone broke, an' ownin' no
more than me bed an' me arms. Ye know this, Ned."

"Yes," said Franklin, "I know, Battersleigh. You've been a proud one,"

"Tut, tut, me boy; nivver mind. Ye'll know I came out here to make me
fortune, there bein' no more fightin' daycint enough to engage the
attention of a gintleman annywhere upon t