a strong effort, to master this feeling. The omne ignotum pro magnifico had fairly got possession of my thoughts. I had found a Mephistopheles in Poins, and felt assured that rest would never return to me, until the secret was extorted from the demon. So I resolved to do what, under the circumstances, was perhaps the wisest thing-that is, I agreed with Attie Faunce to go down to Greenwich, and discuss the subject over a fish-dinner and a cool bottle of claret.

CHAPTER IX.

A DAY AT GREENWICH.

OUR Parisian friends are extremely fond of contrasting the gaiety and pleasure which surround existence in their beautiful and luxurious city with the dull monotony of London life, which, they opine, must be very grievous to bear. The sturdy Briton who, in dietary matters, maintains the unrivalled superiority of beefsteaks and brown-stout, and who is as methodical in his recreation as in his mode of conducting business, may esteem this an absolute delusion; nevertheless it must be allowed that there is more than a substratum of truth in the vaunting of the foreigner. I exclude, of course, from consideration family establishments; because there is nothing in the whole world to be compared with the comforts of English domesticity; so perfect, so well regulated, so conducive to the health both of mind and body, is the arrangement of our homes. What can make up for the lack of the fireside round which wife and children are gathered-for the mutual confidence of spouses-for the sweet social

yet attempting to maintain the semblance of perfect self-possession, the ministering waiters flitted through the motley groups.

Having secured a table, and ordered dinner to be ready at a particular hour, Faunce and I strolled out into the Park, where the Mayflower was yet luxuriant, filling the air with its delicious fragrance, and where the forest foliage admitted the sunbeams in long shafts of golden green. Passing from glade to glade, among the quiet fallow-deer, apart from the more open slopes, where the lads of Cheapside and damsels of Bow-bell were making holiday in their own quaint fashion, after the manner of Jack and Jill renowned in nursery song, we came to a little postern-gate opening on Blackheath, and emerged upon the breezy common. Considering its vicinity to London, the scene was strangely solitary. Scarce a passenger or vehicle appeared on the road. A few donkeys ready caparisoned, but unbespoke by riders, were nibbling the stunted grass, whilst the urchins who had them in charge were engaged in an animated game at leap-frog. In the distance two processions of boarding-school girls, headed by their respective duennas, moved along at a funereal pace. Otherwise the place was as destitute of life as the long reaches of Salisbury Plain.

We set out for a brisk walk, as a preliminary for the dinner; and Attie, as usual, made himself most entertaining. Observing that I was rather absent (for, to say the truth, I could not dismiss the interview of the morning from my mind), he launched out into all

sorts of droll conjectures regarding the secret which was locked up in the bosom of Mr Poins. Among other vagaries, he composed a brilliant little romance, after the manner of Alexandre Dumas, making me out to be a Crown-Prince who had been changed at nurse. He then sketched our triumphal entry into the hereditary dominions-for he insisted on being nominated Prime Minister-amidst the vivats of the populace; negotiated a very convenient marriage with a neighbouring Archduchess of surpassing beauty; embroiled me in a quarrel with the Sultan for having raised the tariff upon bowstrings; and finally conducted me, at the head of a victorious army, to Constantinople, where we plucked down the crescent from the dome of St Sophia. I could not help laughing heartily at this, and expressed my surprise that he had never turned his talents for romance to any practical purpose.

Why, you see," said Attie, "the public taste has been somewhat debauched of late, and a fine inventive genius like mine, which spurns at probability, would hardly be appreciated. I once tried a tale for a magazine, but the manuscript was returned to me with an intimation that the editor considered my story rather too bloodthirsty and truculent for insertion in his pages. Certainly it was not milk-and-water. If I recollect aright, there were ten single combats, three assassinations, two poisonings, an Inquisition scene, and the sack of a city, compressed within very narrow compass; and in order to prevent unnecessary mourning at the close, I killed off all my characters except a jocose

serving-man, who wound up with a comic ditty. I don't know where else he could have got so much stirring action thrown into so limited a space; but the blockhead rejected my contribution for a Lowchurch story intended to expose the Puseyites. Most consummate trash it was, I can assure you."

"But really, Attie, I wonder you don't turn your attention to some steady pursuit. A butterfly existence is all very well just now, but you will grow tired of it at last; and then perhaps you may regret that you have not employed your time to better purpose."

"I have a high respect for your opinion, Sinclair; but it strikes me that at present you are enunciating something like cant. What would you have me do? Is it not a common complaint that, owing to the extraordinary competition, it is most difficult to find an opening for young men of education-meaning of course those who have no fortune of their own to trust to; and would you have me, who, thanks to Providence, am somewhat better off, go in for a share of the miserable cake which must be divided among so many applicants? I give you my honour I should regard myself as a shabby fellow if I did anything of the kind."

'But, Faunce, constituted as we are, work of some sort is almost a necessity."

"I deny that. Deep scholars don't work: they read, and so do I, though my reading may be different from theirs. But what do you mean by work? Most people. use the term as significant of something that remune