vividly and
menacingly present before his eyes, Zack thought of the future for once
in his life, and astonished the ministering vassals of the oyster shop
(with all of whom he was on terms of intimate friendship), by enjoying
himself with exemplary moderation at the festive board. When he had done
supper, and was on his way to bed at the tobacconist's across the road,
it is actually not too much to say that he was sober and subdued enough
to have borne inspection by the President and Council of the Royal
Academy, as a model student of the Fine Arts.

It was rather a surprise to him not to hear his friend snoring when
he let himself into the passage, but his surprise rose to blank
astonishment when he entered the front room, and saw the employment on
which his fellow lodger was engaged.

Mat was sitting by the table, with his rifle laid across his knees, and
was scouring the barrel bright with a piece of sand paper. By his side
was an unsnuffed candle, an empty bottle, and a tumbler with a little
raw brandy left in the bottom of it. His face, when he looked up, showed
that he had been drinking hard. There was a stare in his eyes that was
at once fierce and vacant, and a hard, fixed, unnatural smile on his
lips which Zack did not at all like to see.

"Why, Mat, old boy!" he said soothingly, "you look a little out of
sorts. What's wrong?"

Mat scoured away at the barrel of the gun harder than ever, and gave no
answer.

"What, in the name of wonder, can you be scouring your rifle for
to-night?" continued young Thorpe. "You have never yet touched it since
you brought it into the house. What can you possibly want with it now?
We don't shoot birds in England with rifle bullets."

"A rifle bullet will do for _my_ game, if I put it up," said Mat,
suddenly and fiercely fixing his eyes on Zack.

"What game does he mean?" thought young Thorpe. "He's been drinking
himself pretty nearly drunk. Can anything have happened to him since we
parted company at the theater?--I should like to find out; but he's such
an old savage when the brandy's in his head, that I don't half like to
question him--"

Here Zack's reflections were interrupted by the voice of his eccentric
friend.

"Did you ever meet with a man of the name of Carr?" asked Mat. He looked
away from young Thorpe, keeping his eyes steadily on the rifle, and
rubbing hard at the barrel, as he put this question.

"No," said Zack. "Not that I can remember."

Mat left o