l in your presence;" and at last, wearied out with thinking, he
fell asleep.

The day broke with one of those bright breezy mornings which, though
"trying" to the nerves of the weak and delicate, are glorious stimulants
to the strong. The sea plashed merrily over the rocks, and the white
streaky clouds flew over the land with a speed that said it blew hard
at sea. "Glorious day for a sail, Skeffy; we can beat out, and come back
with a stern-wind whenever we like."

"I 'll anticipate the wish by staying on shore, Tony."

"I can't offer you a mount, Skeffy, for I am not the owner of even a
donkey."

"Who wants one? Who wants anything better than to go down where we were
yesterday evening, under that big black rock, with the sea before us,
and the whole wide world behind us, and talk? When a fellow lives as
I do, cooped up within four walls, the range of his view some tiers of
pigeon-holes, mere freedom and a sea-breeze are the grandest luxuries in
creation;" and off they set, armed with an ample supply of tobacco,
the life-buoy of those stragglers in the sea of thought who only ask to
float, but not to reach the shore.

How delightfully did the hours pass over! At least, so Tony felt, for
what a wonderful fellow was Skeffy! What had he not seen or heard or
read? What theme was new, what subject unknown to him? But, above all,
what a marvellous insight had he into the world,--the actual world
of men and women! Great people were not to _his_ eyes mighty gods and
goddesses, seated loftily on a West-End Olympus, but fallible mortals,
with chagrins about the court and grievances about invitations to
Windsor. Ministers, too, whose nods shook empires, were humanities, very
irritable under the gout, and much given to colchicum. Skeffy "knew the
whole thing,"--_he_ was not one of the mere audience. He lived in the
green-room or in the "flats." He knew all the secrets of state, from the
splendid armaments that existed on paper, to the mock thunders that were
manufactured and patented by F. O.

These things Skeffy told like confidences,--secrete he would not have
breathed to any one he held less near his heart than Tony. But somehow
commonplaces told by the lips of authority will assume an immense
authority, and carry with them a stupendous weight; and Tony listened to
the precious words of wisdom as he might have listened to the voice of
Solomon.

But even more interesting still did he become as he sketched forth,
very vag