in rare health and capital spirits, and never in my life
felt more completely your own

"Tony Butler."

One more note remained, but it was not easy to write it, nor even to
decide whether to address it to Dora or to Mr. M'Gruder. At length he
decided for the latter, and wrote thus:--

"Sir,--I beg to offer you the very humblest apology for
the disturbance created last night before your house. We had
all drunk too much wine, lost our heads, and forgotten good
manners. If I had been in a fitting condition to express
myself properly, I 'd have made my excuses on the spot. As
it is, I make the first use of my recovered brains to tell
you how heartily ashamed I am of my conduct, and how
desirous I feel to know that you will cherish no ungenerous
feelings towards your faithful servant,

"T. Butler."

"I hope he 'll think it all right. I hope this will satisfy him. I trust
it is not too humble, though I mean to be humble. If he's a gentleman,
he 'll think no more of it; but he may not be a gentleman, and will
probably fancy that, because I stoop, he ought to kick me. That would be
a mistake; and perhaps it would be as well to add, by way of P.S., 'If
the above is not fully satisfactory, and that you prefer another issue
to this affair, my address is T. Butler, Burnside, Coleraine, Ireland.'

"Perhaps that would spoil it all," thought Tony. "I want him to forgive
an offence; and it's not the best way to that end to say, 'If you like
fighting better, don't balk your fancy.' No, no; I 'll send it in its
first shape. I don't feel very comfortable on my knees, it is true, but
it is all my own fault if I am there.

"And now to reach home again. I wish I knew how that was to be done!
Seven or eight shillings are not a very big sum, but I 'd set off with
them on foot if there was no sea to be traversed." To these thoughts
there was no relief by the possession of any article of value that he
could sell or pledge. He had neither watch nor ring, nor any of those
fanciful trinkets which modern fashion affects.

He knew not one person from whom he could ask the loan of a few pounds;
nor, worse again, could he be certain of being able to repay them
within a reasonable time. To approach Skeffington on such a theme was
impossible; anything rather than this. If he were once at Liverpool,
there were sure to be many captains of Northern steamers that would
know him, and giv