, he would
run the old gentleman through the body cheerfully, and consider it a
meritorious action.

Joe expressed his obligations, and continued, 'You can trust me then,
and credit what I say. I believe I shall enlist in your regiment
to-night. The reason I don't do so now is, because I don't want until
to-night, to do what I can't recall. Where shall I find you, this
evening?'

His friend replied with some unwillingness, and after much ineffectual
entreaty having for its object the immediate settlement of the business,
that his quarters would be at the Crooked Billet in Tower Street; where
he would be found waking until midnight, and sleeping until breakfast
time to-morrow.

'And if I do come--which it's a million to one, I shall--when will you
take me out of London?' demanded Joe.

'To-morrow morning, at half after eight o'clock,' replied the serjeant.
'You'll go abroad--a country where it's all sunshine and plunder--the
finest climate in the world.'

'To go abroad,' said Joe, shaking hands with him, 'is the very thing I
want. You may expect me.'

'You're the kind of lad for us,' cried the serjeant, holding Joe's hand
in his, in the excess of his admiration. 'You're the boy to push your
fortune. I don't say it because I bear you any envy, or would take away
from the credit of the rise you'll make, but if I had been bred and
taught like you, I'd have been a colonel by this time.'

'Tush, man!' said Joe, 'I'm not so young as that. Needs must when the
devil drives; and the devil that drives me is an empty pocket and an
unhappy home. For the present, good-bye.'

'For king and country!' cried the serjeant, flourishing his cap.

'For bread and meat!' cried Joe, snapping his fingers. And so they
parted.

He had very little money in his pocket; so little indeed, that after
paying for his breakfast (which he was too honest and perhaps too proud
to score up to his father's charge) he had but a penny left. He had
courage, notwithstanding, to resist all the affectionate importunities
of the serjeant, who waylaid him at the door with many protestations of
eternal friendship, and did in particular request that he would do him
the favour to accept of only one shilling as a temporary accommodation.
Rejecting his offers both of cash and credit, Joe walked away with
stick and bundle as before, bent upon getting through the day as he best
could, and going down to the locksmith's in the dusk of the evening;
for it should g