retary there, writes me word he paid thirty
shillings for a pot of Yarmouth bloaters. It's a rank humbug all that
about the colonies,--take my word for it!"

"But what is there to be done at home, at least by one like me?"

"Scores of things. Go on to the Exchange,--go in for a rise, go in for
a fall. Take Peruvian Twelves--they 're splendid--or Montezuman mining
script. I did a little in Guatemalas last week, and I expect a capital
return by next settling-day. If you think all this too gambling, get
named director of a company. There's the patent phosphorus blacking,
will give fifty pounds for a respectable chairman; or write a
novel,--that's the easiest thing in life, and pays wonderfully,--Herd
and Dashen give a thousand down, and double the money for each edition;
and it's a fellow's own fault if it ain't a success. Then there's patent
medicine and scene-painting,--any one can paint a scene, all done with a
great brush--this fashion; and you get up to fifteen, ay, twenty pounds
a week. By the way, are you active?"

"Tolerably so. Why do you ask?" said Tony, smiling at the impetuous
incoherence of the other's talk.

"Just hold up this newspaper--so--not so high--there. Don't move; a very
little to the right." So saying, Mr. Darner took three sofa-cushions,
and placed them in a line on the floor; and then, taking off his coat
and waistcoat, retired to a distant corner of the room. "Be steady, now;
don't move," cried he; and then, with a brisk run, he dashed forward,
and leaped head-foremost through the extended newspaper, but with so
vigorous a spring as to alight on the floor a considerable distance in
advance of the cushions, so that he arose with a bump on his forehead,
and his nose bleeding.

"Admirably done! splendidly done!" cried Tony, anxious to cover the
disaster by a well-timed applause.

"I never got so much as a scratch before," said Darner, as be proceeded
to sponge his face. "I 've done the clock and the coach-window at the
Adelphi, and they all thought it was Salter. I could have five pounds
a night and a free benefit. Is it growing black around the eye? I hope
it's not growing black around the eye?"

"Let me bathe it for you. By the way, have you any one here could manage
to get you a little newly baked dough? That's the boxer's remedy for a
bruise. If I knew where to go, I 'd fetch it myself."

Darner looked up from his bathing proceedings, and stared at the
good-natured readiness of one so w