dge of the
ditch against a milestone. The coach was gone. Driver, guard,
highwaymen, even the corporal's body, had disappeared also. But just
before me in the road, under the light of a newly-risen waning moon, stood
the inside passenger, hopping first on one leg then on the other for
warmth; and indeed the villains had despoiled him of three of his
greatcoats.

I sat up, groaned, and tried to lift my hands to my face. My companion
ceased hopping about and regarded me with interest.

"Lost money?" he inquired.

"Public money," I answered, and groaned again. "It means ruin for me," I
added.

"Well," said he, "I've lost my own--every stiver about me." He began to
hop about again, halted, and began to wag his forefinger at me slowly.
"Come, come, what's the use? I'm sorry for you, but where's your heart?"

I stared, not well knowing what to make of his manner.

"Look here," he went on after awhile, "you're thinking that you've lost
your character. Very well; any bones broken?"

"My collar-bone, I think."

"Which, at your age, will heal in no time. Anything else?"

"A twist of the hip, here, and a cut in the head, I believe."

"Tut, tut! Good appetite?"

He had approached, unwound his enormous woollen comforter, and was
beginning to bandage me with it, by no means unskilfully. I thought his
question a mad one, and no doubt my face, as he peered into it, told him
so.

"I mean," he explained, "will you ever be able to eat a beef-steak again--
say, a trifle underdone, with a dozen of oysters for prelude--and drink
beer, d'ye think, and enjoy them both?"

"No doubt."

"And kiss a pretty girl, and be glad to do it?"

"Very likely."

"And fight?"

He eyed his bandage critically, stepped back upon the road and danced
about, stamping with his feet while he cut and thrust at an imaginary
enemy. "And fight, hey?"

"I suppose so."

"Then, bless the lad," he exclaimed, stopping and looking at me as fierce
as a rat, "get on your legs, and don't sit moping as if life were a spilt
posset!"

There was no disobeying this masterful old gentleman, so I made shift to
stand up.

"We have but one life to live," said he.

"I beg your pardon?"

"--In this world. God forgive me, I'd almost forgotten my cloth!
We have, I say, only one life to live in this world, and must make the
best of it. I tell you so, and I'm a clergyman."

"Indeed, sir?"

"Damme, yes; and, what's more, I'll take odds that I'm