le Ewart--The _Susan Thomas_, Captain and Crew--Musical
Performance--The Sly Dog--Misunderstanding--Kempenfeldt Bay.

Eugene Coristine and Farquhar Wilkinson were youngish bachelors and
fellow members of the Victoria and Albert Literary Society. Thither, on
Wednesday evenings, when respectable church-members were wending their
way to weekly service, they hastened regularly, to meet with a band of
like-minded young men, and spend a literary hour or two. In various
degrees of fluency they debated the questions of the day; they read
essays with a wide range of style and topic; they gave readings from
popular authors, and contributed airy creations in prose and in verse to
the Society's manuscript magazine. Wilkinson, the older and more sedate
of the two, who wore a tightly-buttoned blue frock coat and an eyeglass,
was a schoolmaster, pretty well up in the Toronto Public Schools.
Coristine was a lawyer in full practice, but his name did not appear on
the card of the firm which profited by his services. He was taller than
his friend, more jauntily dressed, and was of a more mercurial
temperament than the schoolmaster, for whom, however, he entertained a
profound respect. Different as they were, they were linked together by
an ardent love of literature, especially poetry, by scientific pursuits,
Coristine as a botanist, and Wilkinson as a dabbler in geology, and by
a firm determination to resist, or rather to shun, the allurements of
female society. Many lady teachers wielded the pointer in rooms not far
removed from those in which Mr. Wilkinson held sway, but he did not
condescend to be on terms even of bowing acquaintance with any one of
them. There were several young lady typewriters of respectable city
connections in the offices of Messrs. Tyler, Woodruff and White, but the
young Irish lawyer passed them by without a glance. These bachelors were
of the opinion that women were bringing the dignity of law and education
to the dogs.

It was a Wednesday evening in the beginning of July, and the heat was
still great in the city. Few people ventured out to the evening
services, and fewer still found their way to the Victoria and Albert
hall; in fact, there was not a quorum, and, as the constitution stated
that, in such a case, the meeting should be adjourned, it was adjourned
accordingly. Coristine lit a cigar in the porch, and Wilkinson, who did
not smoke, but said he liked the odour of good tobacco, took his arm for
a