elf, ending with,
"And 'five pounds for the Cruelty to Animals,--from the Reverend Paul
Classon.' I shall be in funds for them all."

"Ah, Kit!" said he at last, with a deep-drawn sigh, "what slaves are
we all, and to the meanest accidents too,--the veriest trifles of our
existence. Ask yourself, I beseech you, what is it that continually
opposes your progress in life,--what is your rock ahead? Your name!
nothing but your name!--call yourself Jones, Wilkins, Simpson, Watkins,
and see what an expansion it will give your naturally fine faculties.
Nobody will dare to assert that you or I are the same men we were
five-and-twenty or thirty years ago, and yet _you_ must be Davis and _I_
must be Classon, whether we will or not. I call this hard,--very hard
indeed!"

"Would it be any benefit to me if I could call myself Paul Classon?"
said Grog, with an insolent grin.

"It is not for the saintly man who bears that name to speak boastfully
of its responsibilities--"

"In bills of exchange, I O U's, promissory notes, and so forth," laughed
in Grog.

"I have, I own, done a little in these ways; but what gifted man ever
lived who has not at some time or other committed his sorrows to paper.
The misfortune in my case was that it was stamped."

"Do you know, Holy Paul, I think you are the greatest 'hemp' I ever
met."

"No, Kit, don't say so,--don't, my dear and valued friend; these words
give me deep pain."

"I do say it, and I maintain it!"

"What good Company you must have kept through life, then!"

"The worst of any man in England. And yet," resumed he, after a pause,
"I 'm positively ashamed to think that my daughter should be married by
the Reverend Paul Classon."

"A prejudice, my dear and respected friend,--a prejudice quite beneath
your enlarged and gifted understanding! Will it much signify to you
if he, who one of these days shall say, 'The sentence of this court,
Christopher Davis, is transportation beyond the seas,' be a Justice of
the Common Pleas or a Baron of the Exchequer? No, no, Kit; it is only
your vain, conceited people who fancy that they are not hanged if it was
n't Calcraft tied the noose!"

More than once did Davis change color at this speech, whose
illustrations were selected with special intention and malice.

"Here 's daybreak already!" cried Grog, throwing open the window, and
admitting the pinkish light of an early dawn, and the fresh sharp air of
morning.

"It's chilly enough too," sa