enience than the moans of
my fellow-passengers. There 's no secret in it, Mr. Onslow; or, if there
be, it lies in this pretty discovery, that we are always bored by our
habit of throwing ourselves on the resources of somebody else, who, in
his turn, looks out for another, and so on. Now, a man in a fever never
dreams of cooling his hand by laying it on another patient's cheek; yet
this is what we do. To be thoroughly bored, you must associate yourself
with some half-dozen tired, weary, dyspeptic twaddles, and make up a
joint-stock bank of your several incapacities, learn to growl in chorus,
and you'll be able to go home and practise it as a solo."

"And have you been completely alone here of late?" said George, who
began to fear that the sermon on ennui was not unaccompanied by a taste
of the evil.

"Occasionally I 've chatted for half an hour with two gentlemen who
reside here, a Colonel Haggerstone--"

"By the way, who is he?" broke in Onslow, eagerly.

"He has been traced back to Madras, but the most searching inquiries
have failed to elicit anything further."

"Is he the man they called Arlington's Colonel Haggerstone?"

Jekyl nodded; but with an air that seemed to say, he would not enter
more deeply into the subject.

"And your other companion who is he?"

"Peter Dalton, of I am ashamed to say I forget where," said Jekyl; who,
at once assuming Dalton's bloated look, in a well-feigned Irish accent,
went on: "a descendant of as ancient and as honorable a familee as any
in the three kingdoms, and if a little down in the world bad luck to
them that done it! just as ready as ever he was to enjoy agreeable
society and the ganial flow of soul."

"He 's the better of the two, I take it," said Onslow.

"More interesting, certainly, just as a ruined chateau is a
more picturesque object than a new police-station or a cut-stone
penitentiary. There 's another feature also which ought to give him the
preference. I have seen two very pretty faces from time to time as
I have passed the windows, and which I conjecture to belong to his
daughters."

"Have you not made their acquaintance?" asked Onslow, in some surprise.

"I grieve to say I have not," sighed Jekyl, softly.

"Why, the matter should not be very difficult, one might opine, in such
a place, at such a time, and with--"

He hesitated, and Jekyl added,

"With such a papa, you were about to say. Well, that is precisely the
difficulty. Had my excellent frien