her some of the actions of which we are the very proudest
will not surprise us when we trace them, as we shall one day, to their
source.

Warrington then did not know, and Pen had not thought proper to confide
to his friend, his pecuniary history. That Pen had been wild and
wickedly extravagant at college, the other was aware; everybody at
college was extravagant and wild; but how great the son's expenses had
been, and how small the mother's means, were points which had not been
as yet submitted to Mr. Warrington's examination.

At last the story came out, while Pen was grimly surveying the
change for the last five-pound note, as it lay upon the tray from the
public-house by Mr. Warrington's pot of ale.

"It is the last rose of summer," said Pen; "its blooming companions
have gone long ago; and behold the last one of the garland has shed its
leaves;" and he told Warrington the whole story which we know of his
mother's means, of his own follies, of Laura's generosity; during which
time Warrington smoked his pipe and listened intent.

"Impecuniosity will do you good," Pen's friend said, knocking out the
ashes at the end of the narration; "I don't know anything more wholesome
for a man--for an honest man, mind you--for another, the medicine loses
its effect--than a state of tick. It is an alterative and a tonic; it
keeps your moral man in a perpetual state of excitement: as a man who
is riding at a fence, or has his opponent's single-stick before him, is
forced to look his obstacle steadily in the face, and braces himself to
repulse or overcome it; a little necessity brings out your pluck if you
have any, and nerves you to grapple with fortune. You will discover
what a number of things you can do without when you have no money to buy
them. You won't want new gloves and varnished boots, eau de Cologne
and cabs to ride in. You have been bred up as a molly-coddle, Pen, and
spoilt by the women. A single man who has health and brains, and can't
find a livelihood in the world, doesn't deserve to stay there. Let him
pay his last halfpenny and jump over Waterloo Bridge. Let him steal a
leg of mutton and be transported and get out of the country--he is not
fit to live in it. Dixi; I have spoken. Give us another pull at the pale
ale.

"You have certainly spoken; but how is one to live?" said Pen. "There is
beef and bread in plenty in England, but you must pay for it with work
or money. And who will take my work? and what work c