g to Latin by way of making yourself more intelligible, I
suppose."

"Macrorie, my boy--"

"Well?"

"Will you be going anywhere near Anderson's to-day--the stone-cutter, I
mean?"

"Why?"

"If you should, let me ask you to do a particular favor for me. Will
you?"

"Why, of course. What is it?"

"Well--it's only to order a tombstone for me--plain, neat--four feet by
sixteen inches--with nothing on it but my name and date. The sale of my
effects will bring enough to pay for it. Don't you fellows go and put
up a tablet about me. I tell you plainly, I don't want it, and, what's
more, I won't stand it."

"By Jove!" I cried; "my dear fellow, one would think you were raving.
Are you thinking of shuffling off the mortal coil? Are you going to
blow your precious brains out for a woman? Is it because some fair one
is cruel that you are thinking of your latter end? Will you, wasting
with despair, die because a woman's fair?"

"No, old chap. I'm going to do something worse."

"Something worse than suicide! What's that? A clean breast, my boy."

"A species of moral suicide."

"What's that? Your style of expression to-day is a kind of secret
cipher. I haven't the key. Please explain."

Jack resumed his pipe, and bent down his head; then he rubbed his broad
brow with his unoccupied hand; then he raised himself up, and looked at
me for a few moments in solemn silence; then he said, in a low voice,
speaking each, word separately and with thrilling emphasis:

CHAPTER III.

"MACRORIE--OLD CHAP--I'M--GOING--TO--BE--MARRIED!!!"

At that astounding piece of intelligence, I sat dumb and stared fixedly
at Jack for the space of half an hour, he regarded me with a mournful
smile. At last my feelings found expression in a long, solemn,
thoughtful, anxious, troubled, and perplexed whistle.

I could think of only one thing. It was a circumstance which Jack had
confided to me as his bosom-friend. Although he had confided the same
thing to at least a hundred other bosom-friends, and I knew it, yet, at
the same time, the knowledge of this did not make the secret any the
less a confidential one; and I had accordingly guarded it like my
heart's blood, and all that sort of thing, you know. Nor would I even
now divulge that secret, were it not for the fact that the cause for
secrecy is removed. The circumstance was this: About a year before, we
had been stationed at Fredericton, in the Province of New Brunswick.
Jack had m