that country
of late, and the descriptions of the magnificence of the scenery have
made me long to have an opportunity of painting it and--"

He paused abruptly and started up, for his uncle had seized a book,
which usually lay open on his desk, and was in fact a sort of dummy
intended to indicate the "study" that was supposed to go on there. Next
moment Frank sprang laughing into the passage, and the book flew with a
crash against the panels of the door as he shut it behind him, leaving
Mr Allfrey to solace himself with a large meerschaum, almost the only
unfailing friend that he possessed.

Thus it came to pass that Frank Allfrey went out to the gold regions of
California.

CHAPTER TWO.

FRANK DISCUSSES HIS PROSPECTS WITH A FRIEND.

We pass over our hero's long voyage round "the Horn," and introduce him
in a totally new scene and under widely different circumstances--seated
near a magnificent tree of which he is making a study, and clad in a
white linen coat and pantaloons and a broad-brimmed straw hat.

Just the day before, the "House" to which he had been sent had failed.
Two years had he spent in grinding at its account books, perched on a
three-legged stool, and now he found himself suddenly cast loose on the
world. Of course when the stool was knocked from under him his salary
was stopped, and he was told by his employers that it would be necessary
for him to go elsewhere to earn a subsistence.

This was rather a startling piece of advice, and for a time Frank felt
much depressed, but on returning to his lodgings, the day he received
his dismissal, his eye fell on his palette and brushes, which he at once
seized, and, hastening out to his favourite tree, was soon so thoroughly
absorbed in the study of "nature" that his sorrows vanished like morning
mist.

After three hours' steady work he arose refreshed in soul and comforted.

Thereafter he returned to his lodgings and sat down to think over his
prospects. His cogitations were temporarily interrupted, and afterwards
materially assisted, by a short thick-set man of about thirty years of
age who entered with a deferential air, and pulled his forelock.

"Come in, Joe. I was just thinking over my future plans, and I daresay
you can assist me, being, I suppose, in the same fix with myself."

Joe Graddy had been a porter in the "House" which had failed, and was
indeed in the "same fix," as Frank said, with himself.

"I've comed, sir," said Joe, "