able to give you?" said I
interrogatively.

"Umph! did I?--aye, so I did--you see, Mr. Lee, there's a young fellow
at Trinity, about your age I should fancy, whom I used to know as a
boy,--and--he was a very good boy--and--and--his mother's a widow;
poor thing--a very nice boy, I may say, he was--and as I feel a sort of
interest about him I thought that you might, perhaps, give one an idea
of how he's going on--just a notion--you understand--umph!"

"Exactly, sir," returned I, "and what may be the name of your friend?"

"Frank Fairlegh," was the answer.

"You could not have applied to a better person," replied I. "Frank
Fairlegh!--why, he was one of my most intimate friends."

"_Was_--umph!"

"Why, yes, it's more was than is, certainly--for since I've been reading
hard, it's a positive fact that I've scarcely seen his face."

"That looks as if he wasn't over fond of reading, then, eh?--umph!"

"You may put that interpretation upon it, certainly," replied I, "but
mind, I don't say it's the true one. I consider it would not be right
in me to tell tales out of school; besides there's nothing to
tell--everybody knows Frank Fairlegh's a good fellow--ask Lawless--ask
Curtis."

"Umph! Lawless? what? that wild young scamp who goes tearing about the
country in a tandem, as if a gig with one horse wasn't dangerous enough,
without putting on a second to make the thing positively terrific?
he must be badly off for something to do, if he can find no better
amusement than trying how nearly he can break a fool's neck, without
doing it quite;--umph! Curtis--why, that's the name of the young
gentleman--very gentle--who, the landlord tells me, has just been
rusticated for insulting Dr. Doublechin, and fastening a muzzle and
chain on one of the men they call 'bull-dogs,' saying, forsooth, that
it wasn't safe to let such ferocious animals go about loose--nice
acquaintance Mr. Frank Fairlegh seems to choose, and you know the
quotation, '_Noscitur a sociis_'."

"Oh," replied I, "but he has others; I have seen him in company with Mr.
Wilford."

~240~~"Wilford? the noted duellist, that scoundrel who has lately shot
the son of Sir John Oaklands, as fine a young man as ever I set eyes
upon?--for I have often seen him when I was living at Helmstone; if I
thought, sir, that Fairlegh was a friend of that man--I'd--I'd--well,
sir," he exclaimed, seeing my eyes fixed upon him with a degree of
interest I could not conceal, "it's nothing