ore they finally won it. Howbeit, the Colonel's
prospects were very fair, and a prodigious indigo crop came in to favour
the B. B. C., with the most brilliant report from the board at Calcutta.
The shares, still somewhat sluggish, rose again, the Colonel's hopes
with them, and the courage of gentlemen at home who had invested their
money in the transaction.

We were sitting one day round the Colonel's dinner-table; it was not one
of the cocoa-nut-tree days; that emblem was locked up in the butler's
pantry, and only beheld the lamps on occasions of state. It was a snug
family party in the early part of the year, When scarcely anybody was in
town; only George Warrington, and F. B., and Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis;
and the ladies having retired, We were having such a talk as we used to
enjoy in quiet old days, before marriages and cares and divisions had
separated us.

F. B. led the conversation. The Colonel received his remarks with great
gravity, and thought him an instructive personage. Others considered him
rather as amusing than instructive, and so his eloquence was generally
welcome. The canvass for the directorship was talked over. The improved
affairs of a certain great Banking Company, which shall be nameless, but
one which F. B. would take the liberty to state, would, in his opinion,
for ever unite the mother country to our great Indian possessions;--the
prosperity of this great Company was enthusiastically drunk by Mr.
Bayham in some of the very best claret. The conduct of the enemies of
that Company was characterised in terms of bitter, but not undeserved,
satire. F. B. rather liked to air his oratory, and neglected few
opportunities for making speeches after dinners.

The Colonel admired his voice and sentiments not the less, perhaps,
because the latter were highly laudatory of the good man. And not from
interest, at least, as far as he himself knew--not from any mean or
selfish motives, did F. B. speak. He called Colonel Newcome his friend,
his benefactor: kissed the hem of his garment: he wished fervently that
he could have been the Colonel's son: he expressed, repeatedly, a desire
that some one would speak ill of the Colonel, so that he, F. B., might
have the opportunity of polishing that individual off in about two
seconds. He covered the Colonel with all his heart; nor is any gentleman
proof altogether against this constant regard and devotion from another.

The Colonel used to wag his head wisely, and say