more like your father for it!
Go away now; look up your decimals, your school classics, and such like,
to be ready for the Civil Service people, and come back here in a week
or so,--let Darner know where to find you," were the last words, as Tony
retired and left the room.

"Well, what success?" cried Darner, as Tony entered his room.

"I can scarcely tell you, but this is what took place;" and he
recounted, as well as memory would serve him, all that had happened.

"Then it's all right,--you are quite safe," said Darner.

"I don't see that, particularly as there remains this examination."

"Humbug,--nothing but humbug! They only pluck the 'swells,' the fellows
who have taken a double-first at Oxford. No, no; you 're as safe as
a church; you 'll get--let me see what it will be--you'll get the
Postmaster-ship of the Bahamas; or be Deputy Coal-meter at St. Helena;
or who knows if he'll not give you that thing he exchanged for t'other
day with F. O. It's a Consul's place, at Trincolopolis. It was Cole
of the Blues had it, and he died; and there are four widows of his now
claiming the pension. Yes, that's where you 'll go, rely on't. There 's
the bell again. Write your address large, very large, on that sheet of
paper, and I 'll send you word when there 's anything up."

CHAPTER VI. DOLLY STEWART

Tony's first care, when he got back to his hotel, was to write to his
mother. He knew how great her impatience would be to hear of him, and
it was a sort of comfort to himself, in his loneliness, to sit down and
pour out his hopes and his anxieties before one who loved him. He told
her of his meeting with the Minister, and, by way of encouragement,
mentioned what Damer had pronounced upon that event. Nor did he forget
to say how grateful he felt to Damer, who, "after all, with his
fine-gentleman airs and graces, might readily have turned a cold
shoulder to a rough-looking fellow like me."

Poor Tony! in his friendlessness he was very grateful for very little.
Nor is there anything which is more characteristic of destitution than
this sentiment. It is as with the schoolboy, who deems himself rich with
a half-crown!

Tony would have liked much to make some inquiry about the family at the
Abbey; whether any one had come to ask after or look for him; whether
Mrs. Trafford had sent down any books for his mother's reading, or any
fresh flowers,--the only present which the widow could be persuaded to
accept; but he was afra