out of the window in a very melancholy mood,
and cursed his fate aloud, when a window was opened close by him, and a
voice exclaimed,--"What! do I see right? Is it you, George?" Mr. Pepusch
was not a little astonished on perceiving the friend, with whom he had
been most intimate during his residence at Madras. "The deuce!" he
exclaimed, "that I should be so forgetful, so utterly stupid! I knew
that you had got safely into harbour, and in Hamburg heard strange
things of your way of living, and, when I had got here, never thought
of paying you a visit. But he who has such wonderful things in his head
as I have--Well, it is lucky that accident brought you to me! You see I
am under arrest, but you can immediately set me free, by answering for
my being really the George Pepusch, whom you knew years ago, and not a
thief nor a robber."

"Why," replied Peregrine, "I should be an excellent bail, being myself
under arrest!"

He now related at large to his friend, how since his return to
Frankfort he had found himself deprived of both his parents, and
had from that time led, amidst all the bustle of a city, a lonely
joyless life, devoted to the memory of other days. To this George
replied morosely, "Oh yes, I have heard of it, I have heard of the
fools'-tricks you play, that you may waste life in a childish dream.
You would be a hero of innocence, of childishness; and for this despise
the just claims which society has upon you. You give imaginary family
feasts, and bestow upon the poor the costly viands, the dear wines,
which you have before served up to the dead. You give yourself
Christmas-boxes, and act as if you were a child, and then present to
poor children these gifts, which are of the sort usually wasted in rich
houses upon spoiled young ones. But you do not reflect that you are
doing a scurvy benefit to the poor in tickling their gums with
delicacies, that they may doubly feel their wretchedness, when
afterwards they are compelled, by pressing hunger, to eat the vile
bits that would be rejected by many a petted lap-dog. Ha! how this
alms-giving disgusts me, when I think that what you thus waste in a day
would be sufficient to support them for months in a moderate manner.
Then too you overload them with glittering gew-gaws, when a common toy,
presented by their fathers or mothers, gives them infinitely more
pleasure. They eat themselves sick with your infernal marchpane; and
with the knowledge of your splendid gifts, whi