not issued at a premium. I
therefore contrived to swallow, as I best could, my indignation, though
it was no easy matter. Seven hundred and fifty pounds is a serious sum,
and would have gone a long way towards the furnishing of a respectable
domicile.

I believe that Cutts, though he never allowed himself to exhibit a
symptom of ordinary regret, was internally annoyed at the confounded
scrape in which I was landed by following his advice. At all events he
soon ceased comporting himself after the manner of the comforters of
Job, and finally undertook to look after my interest in case any
fragment of the deposits could be rescued from the hands of the
Philistines. I have since had a letter from him with the information
that he has recovered a hundred pounds--a friendly exertion which shall
be duly acknowledged so soon as I receive a remittance, which, however,
has not yet come to hand.

By the time we had finished the sherry, I was restored, if not to
good-humour, at least to a state of passive resignation. The Saxon gave
strict orders that he was to be denied to every body, and made some
incoherent proposals about "making a forenoon of it," which, however, I
peremptorily declined.

"It's a very hard thing," said Cutts, "but I see it's an invariable rule
that matrimony and good-fellowship can never go together. You're not
half the brick you used to be, Fred; but I suppose it can't be helped.
There's a degree of slow-coachiness about you which I take to be
peculiarly distressing, and if you don't take care it will become a
confirmed habit."

"Seven hundred and fifty pounds--what! all my pretty chickens and
their"----

Don't swear! It's a highly immoral practice. At all events you'll dine
with me to-day at six. You shall have as much claret as you can
conscientiously desire, and, for company, I have got the queerest fellow
here you ever set eyes on. You used to pull the long bow with
considerable effect, but this chap beats you hollow."

"Who is he?"

"How should I know? He calls himself Leopold Young Mandeville--is a
surveyor by trade, and has been working abroad at some outlandish line
or another for the last two years. He is a very fair hand at the
compasses, and so I have got him here by way of assistant. You may think
him rather dull at first, but wait till he has finished a pint, and I'm
shot if he don't astonish you. Now, if you will have nothing more, we
may as well go out, and take a ride by way of appet