ee months. My
Lord says he 'll stand fifty himself, in that letter I read. It was to
help you to a match, to be sure; but that don't matter. There can be no
question of marrying now. Let me see how this affair is going to turn.
Well, I'll see if I can't do something myself. I've a precious lot of
stamped paper there,"--and he pointed to an old secretary,--"if I could
hit upon a sharp fellow to work it."

"You are a trump, Grog!" cried Beecher, delightedly.

"If we had a clear two hundred, we could start to-morrow," said Grog,
laying down his cigar, and staring steadfastly at him.

"Why, would _you_ come, too?" muttered Beecher, who had never so much as
imagined the possibility of this companionship on the Continent.

"I expect I would," said Davis, with a very peculiar grin. "It ain't
likely you'd manage an affair like this without advice."

"Very true,--very true," said Beecher, hurriedly. "But remember,
Lackington is my brother,--we 're both in the same boat."

"But not with the same skulls," said Grog. And he grinned a savage grin
at the success of his pun.

Beecher, however, so far from appreciating the wit, only understood the
remark as a sneer at his intelligence, and half sulkily said,--

"Oh! I'm quite accustomed to that, now,--I don't mind it."

"That's right,--keep your temper," said Grog, calmly; "that's the best
thing in _your_ book. You 're what they call good-tempered. And," added
he, in the moralizing tone, "though the world does take liberties with
the good-tempered fellows, it shies them many a stray favor,--many a
sly five-pun'-note into the bargain. I've known fellows go
through life--and make a rare good thing of it, too--with no other
stock-in-trade than this same good temper."

Beecher did not pay his habitual attention to Grog's words, but sat
pondering over all the possible and impossible objections to a tour
in such company. There were times and places where men might be seen
talking to such a man as Davis. The betting-ring and the weighing-stand
have their privileges, just like the green-room or the "flats," but in
neither case are the intimacies of such localities exactly of a kind for
parade before the world. Of all the perils of such a course none knew
better than Beecher. What society would think,--what clubs would say of
it,--he could picture to his mind at once.

Now, there were very few of life's casualties of which the Honorable
Annesley Beecher had not tasted. He knew what