ses.

"I 've scarcely thought of it yet," simpered out the other, with his
habitual smile. "There's no saying where one ought to pitch his tent
till the Carnival opens."

"And you, sir?" asked Haggerstone of his companion on the other side.

"Upon my honor, I don't know then," said Dalton; "but I would n't wonder
if I stayed here, or hereabouts."

"Here! why, this is Tobolsk, sir! You surely couldn't mean to pass a
winter here?"

"I once knew a man who did it," interposed Jekyl, blandly. "They cleaned
him out at 'the tables;' and so he had nothing for it but to remain.
He made rather a good thing of it, too; for it seems these worthy
people, however conversant with the great arts of ruin, had never seen
the royal game of thimble-rig; and Frank Mathews walked into them all,
and contrived to keep himself in beet-root and boiled beef by his little
talents."

"Was n't that the fellow who was broke at Kilmagund?" croaked
Haggerstone.

"Something happened to him in India; I never well knew what," simpered
Jekyl. "Some said he had caught the cholera; others, that he had got
into the Company's service."

"By way of a mishap, sir, I suppose," said the Colonel, tartly.

"He would n't have minded it, in the least. For certain," resumed the
other, coolly, "he was a sharp-witted fellow; always ready to take the
tone of any society."

The Colonel's cheek grew yellower, and his eyes sparkled with an angrier
lustre; but he made no rejoinder.

"That's the place to make a fortune, I'm told," said Dalton. "I hear
there's not the like of it all the world over."

"Or to spend one," added Haggerstone, curtly.

"Well, and why not?" replied Dalton. "I 'm sure it 's as pleasant as
saving barring a man 's a Scotchman."

"And if he should be, sir? and if he were one that now stands before
you?" said Haggerstone, drawing himself proudly up, and looking the
other sternly in the face.

"No offence no offence in life. I did n't mean to hurt your feelings.
Sure, a man can't help where he 's going to be born."

"I fancy we'd all have booked ourselves for a cradle in Buckingham
Palace," interposed Jekyl, "if the matter were optional."

"Faith! I don't think so," broke in Dalton. "Give me back
Corrig-O'Neal, as my grandfather Pearce had it, with the whole barony
of Kilmurray-O'Mahon, two packs of hounds, and the first cellar in
the county, and to the devil I'd fling all the royal residences ever I
seen."

"The sentiment is scarce