finished his anecdote, looking himself as grave as a judge, a message from Sniggs' young gentleman, Mr. Tibbs, took him away before the time at which he had intended to go. We were at least Wells and I-considerably agitated by the sudden manner in which the message was announced; and I-full to a certain degree of a kind of internal superstition-anticipated the worst.

Wells, who saw what was passing in my mind, and knowing that I was specially prohibited from even entering the apothecary's house, followed Sniggs, promising to bring me an authentic account of poor Tom's state; and thus, in no humour for such a scene, I was left for a short time tête-à-tête with Delaville Daly or Daly Delaville, which"Sibthorpe Hopkins, or ever it best suited himself to be. Hopkins Sibthorpe."

"Odd, isn't it?" said he, when Wells was fairly out of hearing-" deuced odd, that we should be both here together,' as the new song says? Wells is a capital fellowliked him the moment I saw him-always have a respect for the cloth-especially when a dinner is in the way. You told me you were coming here; so, thinks I to myself, I'll just pave the way and meet him-did it in my best style."

"You seem to have done so," said I, in a tone and manner which must have practically convinced the yet untamed madcap that I had very materially altered my views of life and society.

"Never see a Domine," said Daly, "but think of the horrid tricks we used to play Carbo Cockletop, the curate of Cranberry, where I was at all the school I ever had—we called him Carbo because he looked like a Wallsend polished devout but dirty, poor dear fellow! Amiable, confiding, dim-eyed, and dignified, if not in his profession, certainly in his manner; he had a fashion of throwing himself with a magisterial air backwards on the seat in the pulpit after his preliminary prayer. Upon that seat did I regularly do hen's work every Sunday."

"Hen's work?" said I, gravely, and really not comprehending him.

"Yes," said Daly-"hen's work. Every Sunday, there and upon that velvet cushion did I lay an egg, and as regularly did poor Carbo Cockletop carry on the process of incubation to a certain degree by sitting on it-falling gracefully upon his seat without looking before, or rather behind him, down he went squash went the egg; and so absorbed was he in the might of his own majesty, that, like a heroic general in a different field of action, he never heard the

bursting of the shell, nor took any notice of the event. But when the sermon was over, and Carbo came down to make the amiable amongst his congregation, the effect of the squash upon the back of his shining canonicals was goodthe field sable and the egg proper were beautiful heraldry; and homeward he walked, wholly unconscious of the absurdity of his appearance. And this I did seven consecutive Sundays with undiminished success."

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Ah," said I," such things I could have laughed at once -but

"I perceive," said Daly, "things are alterated since I was behind the parson, and you have been before him; however, I am a Benedick too-eh?-thank your lucky stars!"

"I hope,” said I," that your prospects will brighten. I am sure your book ought to secure you money and reputation. I only wonder how you, with your habits, could have undergone the fatigues and privations incidental to such a journey as that which you have so accurately detailed.”

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Fatigues!" said Daly; "privations!-why, my dear Gilbert, you don't suppose I ever went to any of the places I describe-not a bit of it! I never was out of the infernal town, which, I wish to my heart, I never had been in, except as I remember my visits to Sir Frank Blazeaway, the commodore, in his frigate. Frank is as fine a fellow as ever stepped-fights like a devil, and drinks and plays as well as he fights."

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My dear Daly," said I, "all these things are very well in their way, but you ought to reflect."

"What, as my looking-glass does when I shave," said Daly, "to warn me how time creeps on or rather gallops. No, I hate reflection, Gilbert. Sufficient to the day be the evil thereof; and although some great man, I forget his name at the moment no matter says, He that never looks back will never gain wisdom enough to look forward,' I go no farther than the present

"But, the book," said I; "how do you reconcile the calling it your journey into the interior?"

"Tis mine, 'twas his,'" said Daly, "and, I hope, will 'be slave to thousands.' I talked to a man who had been there, or somewhere else, and I read other men's books of travels. I knew they had never been where they said they had been; and I consider a matter-of-fact detail, made off. hand, is a work of infinitely greater ingenuity than the common-place report of an actual journey. Rely upon it, my Qualch will become a fashionable dish before a twelve

month is over our heads, and I shall be lionised all over London for having caught a glimpse of the Bogieminnicombo Mountains, which never were discovered, and having ascertained the direction in which a river that nobody ever heard of does not run."

"I hope you may, but—”

"Oh," said Daly, "you are skeptical-you have pulled up and are steady-I must continue dashing at something. True, my creditors are not dead, but they must be pacified. I can't kill myself a second time, and 'take the benefit of the act'-I mean of innocent suicide-the knob on my nose is too well known now. Still, nil despérandum is my motto; and I back myself three to two, like the winner at White's, that I fall on my legs-at least as long as I have a plank left to stand upon."

"Exactly so," said I, not forgetting what I had seen some years before at the Old Bailey; "but now," I continued, really anxious about him, and feeling rather glad that I had an opportunity of offering him some assistance, which I had not done in the morning, "what do you really and seriously propose ?"

His answer was checked by the return of Wells, the expression of whose generally cheerful countenance told me better than words, that matters looked badly with the invalid.

"The boy is dying," said Wells; "he is delirious, and Sniggs is convinced an effusion on the brain will take place. Nothing can be worse.".

"Nothing, indeed," said I. "This will be a dreadful blow upon us all; and, to say truth, I do not think, when the case comes to be looked into, that Sniggs will get much credit on the score of carefulness, in allowing such a patient access to strong spirits like cherry brandy."

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"Especially," ," said Daly, who would rather lose ten friends than one joke, however good the one, and however bad the other "especially a boy whose addiction to bounce was notorious."

"Ah, Mr. Delaville," said Wells, "those who have never suffered an affliction of this sort may jest upon it: for my part, I am sure you will forgive me; I had hoped to pass an agreeable day and evening with you and my son-in-law; but this most unexpected calamity presses upon us dreadfully, and I think that Gilbert and I ought to go to Ashmead, where the news, if any thing fatal does occur, would perhaps abruptly reach his wife, and produce the most serious consequences."

"I agree with you," said I to Wells: "and I am sure, my dear Daly

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Daly!" said Wells. "Delaville, I thought."
Ay," said I, "his travelling name; but-

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Daly!" repeated the rector, somewhat emphatically. Surely you are not the Mr. Daly of whom I have heard Gilbert so frequently talk?"

"The same in propriâ personâ,” said Daly, making a theatrical bow, "and very much at your service."

I saw that the rector was very much surprised, and fancied that he was a little angry. This vexed me; because I feared that I should be implicated as a party to the deception with regard to my friend's assumed name. However, as I had neither brought him to the rectory, nor invited him thither, but, on the contrary, had left my own house in order to avoid him; I felt, also, that I could explain away my share of the business during our walk to Ashmead; upon which Wells seemed more positively resolved, after discovering whom his guest really was, than he was before.

"I shall make no apology, Mr. Daly," said Wells, "for wishing you a good evening: so old a friend of my son-inlaw will, I am sure, not require ceremony."

"Assuredly not," said Daly. "I will just top up with one glass of sherry, and betake myself to 'mine inn,' extremely glad to have seen Gilbert happy, and to thank you for your hospitality." Saying which, he rose from the table, Wells rang the bell, and, having cordially shaken hands with both of us, the unreformed wag was, in a few minutes, clear of the house.

13*

CHAPTER IX.

"I HAD no idea," said Wells, when Daly was out of hearing, "that our entertaining mimic was your redoubtable friend, of whom you have so often spoken: if I hadand I wonder almost that you had not told me—I don't think I should have asked him here."

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My motive," said I, "for not saying any thing about him was my desire not to betray him under his disguise; but most certainly I did not expect to find him your guest.

"The deuce you did not!" said Wells. "Then he must be rather a sharp hand. He came up to me in the library, told me had breakfasted with you, and that you regretted your engagement to me-of which I then knew nothingbecause it would keep you from him; and all this he did so plausibly, and so coolly, that he made me understand, without directly saying it, that you wished to dine here instead of at Ashmead, in order to keep the house quiet, and that, moreover, your plan was that I should ask him to meet you."

"Well," said I, "give him the full credit for his ingenuity, and believe that I was perfectly innocent of any such conspiracy, and never was more surprised in my life than when I found him here."

"Never mind," said Wells; "I wish we had not such good, or rather bad reasons for driving him away. Gilbert, rely upon it, that boy will not get over it."

"I fear not," said I.

"We had better prepare poor Harriet for the possibility of his death," said Wells; "and, moreover, I am anxious to see her mother. I have had a very extraordinary communication from the lieutenant touching his affair with Fanny, of which I do not exactly understand the meaning.

"Come," said I, "let us be going;" and we mechanical