in speaking
of the past, but also to reveal all his hopes for the future, and the
object of his journey. Though the Captain was nothing less than a man of
science, he could fathom sufficiently the details the other gave to
see that the speaker was no ordinary man, and his discovery no small
invention.

"Ay," said the doctor, as, carried away by the excitement of the wine,
he grew boastful and vain, "you 'll see, sir, that the man who sat
shivering beside you on the outside of the mail without a great-coat to
cover him, will, one of these days, be recognized as amongst the first
of his nation, and along with Hunter and Bell and Brodie will stand the
name of Herbert Layton!"

"You had a very distinguished namesake once, a Fellow of Trinity--"

"Myself, sir, none other. I am the man!" cried he, in a burst of
triumphant pride. "I am--that is, I was--the Regius Professor of
Medicine; I was Gold Medallist in 18--; then Chancellor's Prizeman; the
following year I beat Stack and Naper,--you 've heard of _them_, I
'm sure, on the Fellowship bench; I carried away the Verse prize from
George Wolffe; and now, this day,--ay, sir, this day,--I don't think I
'd have eaten if you had not asked me to dine with you."

"Come, come," said the Captain, pushing the decanter towards him, "there
are good days coming. Even in a moneyed point of view, your discovery is
worth some fifteen or twenty thousand pounds."

"I 'd not sell it for a million; it shall be within the reach of the
humblest peasant in the land the day I have perfected the details. It
shall be for Parliament--the two Houses of the nation--to reward me, or
I 'll never accept a shilling."

"That's a very noble and high-spirited resolve. I like you for it; I
respect you for it," said the Captain, warmly.

"I know well what had been my recognition if I had been born a German or
a Frenchman. It is in England alone scientific discovery brings neither
advancement nor honor. They pension the informer that betrays his
confederates, and they leave the man of intellect to die, as Chatterton
died, of starvation in a garret Is n't that true?"

"Too true,--too true, indeed!" sighed the Captain, mournfully.

"And as to the Ireland of long ago," said Layton, "how much more wise
her present-day rulers are than those who governed her in times past,
and whose great difficulty was to deal with a dominant class, and to
induce them to abate any of the pretensions which years of tried loyal