spread gradually over the face of the most thoughtless,--until all doubt
melted away, and he exclaimed,--

"Is that you, Mr. Tomlinson? How glad I am to see you here!"

"And I," returned the quondam murderer for the newspapers, with a nasal
twang, "should be very glad to see myself anywhere else."

Paul made no answer; and Augustus continued,--

"'To a wise man all places are the same,'--so it has been said. I don't
believe it, Paul,--I don't believe it. But a truce to reflection! I
remembered you the moment I saw you, though you are surprisingly grown.
How is my friend MacGrawler?--still hard at work for 'The Asinaeum'?"

"I believe so," said Paul, sullenly, and hastening to change the
conversation; "but tell me, Mr. Tomlinson, how came you hither? I
heard you had gone down to the North of England to fulfil a lucrative
employment."

"Possibly! The world always misrepresents the actions of those who are
constantly before it."

"It is very true," said Paul; "and I have said the same thing myself
a hundred times in 'The Asinaeum,' for we were never too lavish of our
truths in that magnificent journal. 'T is astonishing what a way we made
three ideas go."

"You remind me of myself and my newspaper labours," rejoined Augustus
Tomlinson. "I am not quite sure that I had so many as three ideas to
spare; for, as you say, it is astonishing how far that number may go,
properly managed. It is with writers as with strolling players,--the
same three ideas that did for Turks in one scene do for Highlanders in
the next; but you must tell me your history one of these days, and you
shall hear mine."

"I should be excessively obliged to you for your confidence," said Paul,
"and I doubt not but your life must be excessively entertaining. Mine,
as yet, has been but insipid. The lives of literary men are not fraught
with adventure; and I question whether every writer in 'The Asinaeum'
has not led pretty nearly the same existence as that which I have
sustained myself."

In conversation of this sort our newly restored friends passed the
remainder of the day, until the hour of half-past four, when the
prisoners are to suppose night has begun, and be locked up in their
bedrooms. Tomlinson then, who was glad to re-find a person who had known
him in his beaux jours, spoke privately to the turnkey; and the result
of the conversation was the coupling Paul and Augustus in the same
chamber, which was a sort of stone box, that generally