t, and considers
it advisable to save even a few hours, so as to enable you to give your
friends the most time possible to make their arrangements for coming
to my studio. Post all the invitation tickets, therefore, that you send
about among your connection, at once, as I am posting mine; and you will
save a day by that means, which is a good deal. Patty is obliged to pass
your house this morning on an errand, so I send my letter by her. How
conveniently things sometimes turn out, don't they?

"Introduce anybody you like; but I should prefer _intellectual_ people;
my figure-subject of 'Columbus in sight of the New World' being treated
mystically, and, therefore, adapted to tax the popular mind to the
utmost. Please warn your friends beforehand that it is a work of high
art, and that nobody can hope to understand it in a hurry.

"Affectionately yours,

"V. BLYTH."

The perusal of this letter reminded Zack of certain recent aspirations
in the direction of the fine arts, which had escaped his slippery memory
altogether, while he was thinking of his future prospects. "I'll stick
to my first idea," he thought, "and be an artist, if Blyth will let me,
after what's happened. If he won't, I've got Mat to fall back upon; and
I'll run as wild in America as ever he did."

Reflecting thus, Zack descended cautiously to the back parlor, which
was called a "library." The open door showed him that no one was in the
room. He went in, and in great haste scrawled the following answer to
Mr. Blyth's letter:--

"MY DEAR BLYTH--Thank you for the tickets. I have got into a dreadful
scrape, having been found out coming home tipsy at four in the morning,
which I did by stealing the family door-key. My prospects after this are
so extremely unpleasant that I am going to make a bolt of it. I write
these lines in a tearing hurry, for fear my father should come home
before I have done--he having gone to Yollop's to set the parson at me
again worse than ever.

"I can't come to you to-night, because your house would be the first
place they would send to after me. But I mean to be an artist, if you
won't desert me. Don't, my dear fellow! I know I'm a scamp; but I'll try
and be a reformed character, if you will only stick by me. When you take
your walk tomorrow, I shall be at the turnpike in the Laburnum Road,
waiting for you, at three o'clock. If you won't come there, or won't
speak to