the listlessness of idleness personified--"very true, Irving; I begin to
think it worse than being quartered in a country town inhabited by
nobodies, where one has nothing to do but to loll and spit over the bridge
all day, till the bugle sounds for dinner."

"Oh! that was infinitely better; at least, you could walk away when you
were tired, or exchange a word or two with a girl as she passed over it, on
her way to market."

"Why don't you take a book, Irving?" observed the major, laying down the
one with which he had been occupied, to join the conservation.

"A book, major? Oh, I've read until I am tired."

"What have you read since you embarked ?" inquired his senior.

"Let me see--Ansell, what have I read?"

"Read!--nothing at all--you know that."

"Well, perhaps so; we have no mess-newspapers here: the fact is, major, I
am not very partial to reading--I am not in the habit of it. When on shore
I have too much to do; but I mean to read by-and-bye."

"And pray, when may that by-and-bye be supposed to arrive?"

"Oh! some day when I am wounded or taken prisoner, and cannot do anything
else; then I shall read a good deal. Here's Captain Oughton--Captain
Oughton, do you read much?"

"Yes, Mr Irving, I read a great deal."

"Pray, may I take the liberty to ask you what you read?"

"What I read! Why, I read Horsburgh's Directory:--and I read--I read all
the fights."

"I think," observed Ansell, "that if a man gets through the newspaper and
the novels of the day, he does a great deal."

"He reads a great deal, I grant you," replied the major; "but of what value
is that description of reading?"

"There, major," replied Ansell, "we are at issue. I consider a knowledge of
the passing events of the day, and a recollection of the facts which have
occurred during the last twenty years, to be more valuable than all the
ancient records in existence. Who talks of Caesar or Xenophon nowadays,
except some Cambridge or Oxford prig? and of what value is that knowledge
in society? The escape of a modern pickpocket will afford more matter of
conversation than the famous retreat of the ten thousand."

"To be sure," replied Captain Oughton; "and a fair stand-up fight between
Humphreys and Mendoza create more interest than the famous battles of--,
I'm sure I forget."

"Of Marathon and Thermopylae; they will do," added Ansell.

"I grant," replied the major, "that it is not only unnecessary, but
conceited in those who would