us,
you know--ah. Thawght you might be in a hole, you know--ah? And, Bai-
ey Je-ove! I say, old fellah,"--he added, almost dropping his drawl in
his earnestness,--"if I can help you in any way at all--ah, I should
weally be vewy glad--ah!"

The "us," whom I had "left--ah," referred, of course, to officialdom;
but, it was kind, wasn't it?

There was old Shuffler, too.

"You ain't a goin' to Amerikey, sir, is you?" he asked me just before my
departure, meeting me in the street.

"Yes, I am, Shuffler," I replied, "and pretty soon, too!"

"Lor! Mister Lorton; but I'm right loth to 'ear it! I've got a brother
myself over in Amerikey; s'pose now, sir, I was to give you a letter to
'im? It might, you know, some'ow or hother, be o' service, hay?"

"America is a large place, Shuffler," I answered.--"Whereabouts is he
over there, eh?"

"Well, sir," said he, "I don't 'zackly knows were 'e his; but I dessay
you'll come across him, sir. I'll give you the letter, at hany rate;"--
and he did too, although I combated his resolution. I need hardly add
that I never met the said "brother in Amerikey" of his; so, that it was
of no use to me, as I told him--although, it was a considerate action on
Shuffler's part!

Lady Dasher, also, did not forget me.

Believing that the last of the Mohicans still lived, and that the
continent of the setting sun resembled Hounslow Heath in the old
highwaymen's days, she presented to me--a blunderbuss!

It was one with which her "poor dear papa" had been in the habit of
frightening obstreperous White Boys, who might assail the sacred
premises of Ballybrogue Castle--the ancestral seat of the Earls of
Planetree in sportive Tipperary, as I believe I've told you before. The
weapon, she informed me, was a most efficient one, having once been
known--when missing the advocate of "young Ireland" it was aimed at--to
demolish a whole litter of those little gentlemen with curly tails who
assist, in conjunction with the "praties," in "paying the rint" of the
trusting natives of the Emerald Isle; consequently, its destructive
powers were beyond question, and it might really, she thought, be of the
utmost utility to me on the western prairies, where, she believed, I was
going to "camp out" for ever!

My lady gave me, in addition, a piece of advice, which she implored me
always to bear in mind throughout my life--as she had invariably done--
and that was, that, "Though I might unfortunately be poor,