lonel Pompley made his income go. It was but seven hundred a-year; and
many a family contrive to do less upon three thousand. To be sure, the
Pompleys had no children to sponge upon them. What they had, they spent
all on themselves. Neither, if the Pompleys never exceeded their income,
did they pretend to live much within it. The two ends of the year met at
Christmas--just met, and no more.

Colonel Pompley sat at his desk. He was in his well brushed blue
coat--buttoned across his breast--his gray trowsers fitted tight to his
limbs, and fastened under his boots with a link chain. He saved a great
deal of money in straps. No one ever saw Colonel Pompley in
dressing-gown and slippers. He and his house were alike in order--always
fit to be seen--

"From morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve."

The Colonel was a short compact man, inclined to be stout--with a very
red face, that seemed not only shaved, but rasped. He wore his hair
cropped close, except just in front, where it formed what the
hairdresser called a feather; but it seemed a feather of iron, so stiff
and so strong was it. Firmness and precision were emphatically marked
on the Colonel's countenance. There was a resolute strain on his
features, as if he was always employed in making the two ends meet!

So he sat before his house-book, with his steel pen in his hand, and
making crosses here and notes of interrogation there. "Mrs. M'Catchley's
maid," said the Colonel to himself, "must be put upon rations. The tea
that she drinks! Good Heavens!--tea again!"

There was a modest ring at the outer door. "Too early for a visitor!"
thought the Colonel. "Perhaps it is the water rates."

The neat man-servant--never seen, beyond the offices, save in _grande
tenue_, plushed and powdered--entered, and bowed.

"A gentleman, sir, wishes to see you."

"A gentleman," repeated the Colonel, glancing towards the clock. "Are
you sure it is a gentleman?"

The man hesitated. "Why, sir, I ben't exactly sure; but he speaks like a
gentleman. He do say he comes from London to see you, sir."

A long and interesting correspondence was then being held between the
Colonel and one of his wife's trustees touching the investment of Mrs.
Pompley's fortune. It might be the trustee--nay, it must be. The trustee
had talked of running down to see him.

"Let him come in," said the Colonel; "and when I ring--sandwiches and
sherry."

"Beef, sir?"

"Ham."

The Colonel put aside his hous