ponge-like fist--"he's honest, and pays debts of
honour on the nail. No, sir, there's no one can say a word against
Tobias, except that he's a half-pay old fool with more heart than
brains. However," he added, suddenly dropping the sentimental and
coming back to the practical, "if you, me dear boy, can obloige me with
the money until to-morrow morning, I'll play Jorrocks with pleasure.
There's not many men that I'd ask such a favour of, and even from you
I'd never accept anything more than a mere timporary convanience."

"You may stake your life on that," Ezra Girdlestone said with a sneer,
looking sullenly down and tracing figures with the end of his stick on
the stone steps. "You'll never get the chance. I make it a rule never
to lend any one money, either for short or long periods."

"And you won't let me have this throifling accommodation?"

"No," the young man said decisively.

For a moment the major's brick-coloured, weather-beaten face assumed an
even darker tint, and his small dark eyes looked out angrily from under
his shaggy brows at his youthful companion. He managed to suppress the
threatened explosion, however, and burst into a loud roar of laughter.

"'Pon me sowl!" he wheezed, poking the young man in the ribs with his
stick, an implement which he had grasped a moment before as though he
meditated putting it to a less pacific use, "you young divils of
business-men are too much for poor old Tobias. Ged, sir, to think of
being stuck in the mud for the want of a paltry tenner! Tommy Heathcote
will laugh when he hears of it. You know Tommy of the 81st? He gave me
good advice: 'Always sew a fifty-pound note into the lining of each
waistcoat you've got. Then you can't go short.' Tried it once, and, be
George! if me demned man-servant didn't stale that very waistcoat and
sell it for six and sixpence. You're not going, are you?"

"Yes; I'm due in the City. The governor leaves at four. Good-bye.
Shall I see you to-night?"

"Card-room, as per usual," quoth the clean-shaven warrior. He looked
after the retreating figure of his late companion with anything but a
pleasant expression upon his face. The young man happened to glance
round as he was half-way down the street, on which the major smiled
after him paternally, and gave a merry flourish with his stick.

As the old soldier stood on the top of the club steps, pompous,
pigeon-chested, and respectable, posing himself as though he had been
pla