e, how are you?" cried Rankin; "haven't seen you for
a long time. I think another 'smile' wouldn't hurt us, eh? What do you
say? I'm doing bitters. Nothing like Angostura--with a little drop of
gin in it; gives tone to the system. What's yours?"

Laurence named his, and the genial Rankin having shouted for it and
other "rounds," proceeded to unfold some wondrous scheme by which he
was infallibly bound to retrieve all their fortunes at least cent. per
cent. It was only a matter of a little capital. Anyone who had the
foresight to intrust him with a few hundreds might consider his fortune
made. But, somehow, nobody could be found to hand over those few
hundreds. In point of fact, nobody had got them.

"Here, Rainsford," sung out somebody, "we are tossing for another 'all
round.' Won't your friend cut in?"

Laurence did cut in, and then Holmes, who, being of genial disposition,
and very hard hit too in the scrip line, began uproariously to suggest a
further "drown care."

"Excuse me, eh, Holmes?" said Laurence. "It's getting too thick, and I
don't think this is a sort of care that'll bear drowning. I'm off.
So-long, everybody."

"Hold on, Stanninghame," sung out Rankin, who was the most hospitable
soul alive. "Come round to the house and dine with us. I'm just going
along. We'd better do another bitters though, first. What do you say?"

But Laurence declined both hospitalities. A very dark mood was upon
him--one which rendered the idea of the society of his fellows
distasteful to the last degree. So he left the carousing crowd, and
betook himself to his quarters.

Now the method of drowning care as thus practised commended itself to
him on no principle of practical efficacy. He had care enough to drown,
Heaven knew, but against any temptation to fly to the bottle in order
to swamp it he was proof. His very cynicism, selfish, egotistical as it
might be in its hard and sweeping ruthlessness, was a safeguard to him
in this connection. That he, Laurence Stanninghame, to whom the vast
bulk of mankind represented a commingling of rogue and fool in about
equal proportion, should ever come to render himself unsteady on his
feet, and hardly responsible for the words which came from his brain,
presented a picture so unutterably degraded and loathsome, that his mind
recoiled from the barest contemplation of it.

Yes, he had care enough, in all conscience, that day as he walked back
to his quarters; for unless the market took