ty
would seem to have confirmed into rights! I speak as one who was once a
'United Irishman,'" said he.

Laying down the glass he was raising to his lips, the Captain leaned
across the table and grasped Layton's hand; and although there was
nothing in the gesture which a bystander could have noticed, it seemed
to convey a secret signal, for Layton cried out exultingly,--

"A brother in the cause!"

"You may believe how your frank, outspoken nature has won upon me,"
said he, "when I have confided to you a secret that would, if revealed,
certainly cost me my commission, and might imperil my life; but I will
do more, Layton, I will tell you that our fraternity exists in full
vigor,--not here, but thousands of miles away,--and England will have to
reap in India the wrongs she has sown in Ireland."

"With this I have no sympathy," burst in Layton, boldly. "Our
association--at least, as I understood it--was to elevate and
enfranchise Ireland, not humiliate England. It was well enough for Wolfe
Tone and men of his stamp to take this view, but Nielson and myself were
differently minded, and _we_ deemed that the empire would be but the
greater when all who served it were equals."

Was it that the moment was propitious, was it that Lay-ton's persuasive
power was at its highest, was it that the earnest zeal of the man had
carried conviction with his words? However it happened, the Captain,
after listening to a long and well-reasoned statement, leaned his head
thoughtfully on his hand, and said,--

"I wish I had known you in earlier days, Layton. You have placed these
things before me in a point I have never seen them before, nor do I
believe that there are ten men amongst us who have. Grant me a favor,"
said he, as if a sudden thought had just crossed him.

"What is it?" asked Layton.

"Come and stay a week or two with me at my little cottage at Glasnevin;
I am a bachelor, and live that sort of secluded life that will leave you
ample time for your own pursuits."

"Give me a corner for my glass bottles and a furnace, and I 'm your
man," said Layton, laughingly.

"You shall make a laboratory of anything but the dinner-room," cried
Holmes, shaking hands on the compact, and thus sealing it.

The guard's horn soon after summoned them to their places, and they once
more were on the road.

The men who have long waged a hand-to-hand combat with fortune,
unfriended and uncheered, experience an intense enjoyment when comes
t