ind my unfortunate
head is like a bell with the vibration of the last stroke of the hammer
on it. Don't forget,--to-morrow, sharp six. You 'll meet nobody but
Broughton."

"Dudley,--Sir Dudley Broughton?"

"The same. You know him, then, already? Poor fellow! he's terribly
cut up; but he 'll be glad to see an old friend. Have you been much
together?"

"A great deal. I made a cruise with him in his yacht, the 'Firefly.'"

"What a rare piece of fortune to have met you!" cried Falkoner, as he
shook my hand once more. And so, with the most fervent assurances of
meeting on the morrow, we parted,--he, to saunter slowly towards his
hotel; and I, to stand in the middle of the street, and, as I wiped the
perspiration from my brow, to ask myself, had I gone clean mad.

I was so overwhelmed by the shock of my own impudence that I stood where
Falkoner left me, for full five minutes, motionless and spell-bound.
To have boasted of my intimacy with Captain De Courcy, although the
Atlantic rolled between us, was bad enough, in all conscience; but to
have talked of Sir Dudley--the haughty, insolent, overbearing Sir Dudley
Broughton--as "my old friend," was something that actually appalled me.
How could my vain boastfulness have so far got the better of my natural
keenness; how could my silly self-sufficiency have carried me so
far? "Ah," thought I, "it was not the real Con Cregan who spoke
such ineffable folly; these were the outpourings of that diabolical
'Thumbo-rig.'"

While, therefore, I entered into a bond with myself to eschew that
insidious compound in future, I also adopted the far more imminent and
important resolve, to run away from New Orleans. Another sun must not
set upon me in that city, come what might. With a shudder, I called to
mind Sir Dudley's own avowal of his passion as a hater, and I could not
venture to confront such danger.

I accordingly hastened to my miserable lodging, and, packing up my few
clothes, now reduced to the compass of a bundle in a handkerchief, I
paid my bill, and, on a minute calculation of various pieces of strange
coinage, found myself the possessor of four dollars and a quarter,--a
small sum, and something less than a cent for every ten miles I was
removed from my native land. What meant the term "country," after all,
to such as me? He has a country who possesses property in it, whose
interests tie him to the soil, where his name is known and his presence
recognized; but what country