and his mice in the churchyard, was before me. I remained behind the shadow of one of the columns of the porch, leaning against the area rails, and irresolute whether or not so slight an acquaintance justified me in waking the sleeper when a policeman, suddenly emerging from an angle in the street, terminated my deliberations with the decision of his practical profession; for he laid hold of the young man's arm and shook it roughly," You must not lie here, get up and go home!" The sleeper woke with a quick start, rubbed his eyes, looked round, and fixed them upon the policeman so haughtily that that discriminating functionary probably thought that it was not from sheer necessity that so improper a couch had been selected, and with an air of greater respect he said, "You have been drinking, young man,-can you find your way home?" "Yes," said the youth, resettling himself" you see I have found it!" "By the Lord Harry!" muttered the policeman, "if he ben't going to sleep again! Come, come! walk on, or I must walk you off." My old acquaintance turned round. "Policeman," said he, with a strange sort of smile, "what do you think this lodging is worth?--I don't say for the night, for you see that is over, but for the next two hours? The lodging is primitive, but it suits me; I should think a shilling would be a fair price for it, eh?" "You love your joke, sir," said the policeman, with a brow much relaxed, and opening his hand mechanically. 66 Say a shilling, then-it is a bargain! I hire it of you upon credit. Good-night, and call me at six o'clock." With that the young man settled himself so resolutely, and the policeman's face exhibited such bewilderment, that I burst out laughing, and came from my hiding-place. The policeman looked at me. "Do you know this-this" "This gentleman ?" said I, gravely. "Yes, you may leave him to me;" and I slipped the price of the lodging into the policeman's hand. He looked at the shilling-he looked at me-be looked up the street and down the street-shook his head, and walked off. I then approached the youth, touched him, and said-" Can you remember me, sir; and what have you done with Mr Peacock ?" STRANGER (after a pause.)-I remember you; your name is Caxton. PISISTRATUS. And yours? STRANGER.-Poor-devil, if you ask my pockets-pockets, which are the symbols of man; Dare-devil, if you ask my heart. (Surveying me from head to foot)-The world seems to have smiled on you, Mr Caxton! Are you not ashamed to speak to a wretch lying on the stones?-but, to be sure, no one sees you." PISISTRATUS (sententiously.)—Had I lived in the last century, I might have found Samuel Johnson lying on the stones. STRANGER (rising.) - You have spoilt my sleep; you had a right, since you paid for the lodging. Let me walk with you a few paces; you need not fear-I do not pick pockets— yet! PISISTRATUS.-You say the world has smiled on me; I fear it has frowned on you. I don't say courage," for you seem to have enough of that; but I say "patience," which is the rarer quality of the two. STRANGER. Hem! (Again looking at me keenly)-Why is it that you stop to speak to me—one of whom you know nothing, or worse than nothing? PISISTRATUS.-Because I have often thought of you; because you interest me; because-pardon me-I would help you if I can--that is, if you want help. STRANGER.-Want!-I am one want! I want sleep-I want food; I want the patience you recommend-patience to starve and rot. I have travelled from Paris to Boulogne on foot, with twelve sous in my pocket. Out of those twelve sous in my pocket I saved four; with the four I went to a billiard-room at Boulogne ; I won just enough to pay my passage and buy three rolls. You see I only require capital in order to make a fortune. If with four sous I can win ten francs in a night, what could I win with a capital of four sovereigns, and in the course of a year?—that is an application of the Rule of Three which my head aches too much to calculate just at present. Well, those three rolls have lasted me three days; the last crumb went for supper last night. Therefore, take care how you offer me money, (for that is what men mean by help.) You see I have no option but to take it. But I warn you, don't expect gratitude!-I have none in me! PISISTRATUS.-You are not so bad as you paint yourself. I would do something more for you, if I can, than lend you the little I have to offer: 'will you be frank with me? STRANGER. That depends-I have been frank enough hitherto, I think. PISISTRATUS.-True; so I proceed without scruple. Don't tell me your name or your condition, if you object to such confidence; but tell me if you have relations to whom you can apply? You shake your head: well, then, are you willing to work for yourself? or is it only at the billiard-table-pardon me-that you can try to make four sous produce ten francs? STRANGER (musing.) — I understand you; I have never worked yet -I abhor work. But I have no objection to try if it is in me. PISISTRATUS.-It is in you: a man who can walk from Paris to Boulogne with twelve sous in his pocket, and save four for a purpose -who can stake those four on the cool confidence in his own skill, even at billiards-who can subsist for three days on three rolls-and who, on the fourth day, can wake from the stones of a capital with an eye and a spirit as proud as yours, has in him all the requisites to subdue fortune. STRANGER.-Do you work?-you? then. PISISTRATUS.-Good. Now, what can you do? STRANGER (with his odd smile.) Many things useful. I can split a bullet on a penknife: I know the secret tierce of Coulon, the fencingmaster: I can speak two languages (besides English) like a native, even to their slang: I know every game in the cards: I can act comedy, tragedy, farce: I can drink down Bacchus himself: I can make any woman I please in love with me-that is, any woman good-for-nothing. Can I earn a handsome livelihood out of all this-wear kid gloves, and set up a cabriolet ?you see my wishes are modest! PISISTRATUS.-You speak two languages, you say, like a native,— French, I suppose, is one of them? STRANGER.-Yes. PISISTRATUS.-Will you teach it? STRANGER (haughtily.) - No. Je suis gentilhomme, which means more or less than a gentleman. Gentilhomme means well born, because free born,-teachers are slaves! PISISTRATUS (unconsciously imitating Mr Trevanion.)-Stuff! STRANGER (looks angry, and then laughs.)-Very true; stilts don't suit shoes like these! But I cannot teach : heaven help those I should teach!— Anything else? PISISTRATUS.-Anything else! — you leave me a wide margin. You know French thoroughly;-to write as well as speak?-that is much. Give me some address where I can find you, or will you call on me? STRANGER.-No! Any evening at dusk I will meet you. I have no address to give; and I cannot show these rags at another man's door. PISISTRATUS.-At nine in the evening, then, and here in the Strand, on Thursday next. I may then have found something that will suit you. Meanwhile-(slides his purse into the Stranger's hand. N.B.-Purse not very full.) STRANGER, with the air of one conferring a favour, pockets the purse; and there is something so striking in the very absence of all emotion at so accidental a rescue from starvation, that PISISTRATUS exclaims,— "I don't know why I should have taken this fancy to you, Mr Daredevil, if that be the name that please you best. The wood you are made of seems cross-grained, and full of knots; and yet, in the hands of a skilful carver, I think it would be worth much." STRANGER (startled.)-Do you? do you? None, I believe, ever thought that before. But the same wood, I suppose, that makes the gibbet could make the mast of a man-of-war. I tell you, however, why you have taken this fancy to me,-the strong sympathise with the strong. You, too, could subdue fortune! PISISTRATUS.-Stop; if so-if there is congeniality between us, then liking should be reciprocal. Come, say that; for half my chance of helping you is in my power to touch your heart. STRANGER (evidently softened.) If I were as great a rogue as I ought to be, my answer would be easy enough. As it is, I delay it.— Adieu-on Thursday. STRANGER vanishes in the labyrinth of alleys round Leicester Square. CHAPTER XXXVII. On my return to The Lamb, I found that my uncle was in a soft sleep; and after an evening visit from the surgeon, and his assurance that the fever was fast subsiding, and all cause for alarm was gone, I thought it necessary to go back to Trevanion's house, and explain the reason for my night's absence. But the family had not returned from the country. Trevanion himself came up for a few hours in the afternoon, and seemed to feel much for my poor uncle's illness. Though, as usual, very busy, he accompanied me to The Lamb, to see my father, and cheer him up. Roland still continued to mend, as the surgeon phrased it; and as we went back to St James's Square, Trevanion had the consideration to release me from my oar in his galley, for the next few days. My mind, relieved from my anxiety for Roland, now turned to my new friend. It had not been without an object that I had questioned the young man as to his knowledge of French. Trevanion had a large correspondence in foreign countries, which was carried on in that language, and here I could be but of little help to him. He himself, though he spoke and wrote French with fluency and grammatical correctness, wanted that intimate knowledge of the most delicate and diplomatic of all languages to satisfy his classical purism. For Trevanion was a terrible word-weigher. His taste was the plague of my life and his own. His prepared speeches (or rather perorations) were the most finished pieces of cold diction that could be conceived under the marble portico of the Stoics,-so filed and turned, trimmed and tamed, that they never admitted a sentence that could warm the heart, or one that could offend the ear. He had so great a horror of a vulgarism that, like Canning, he would have made a periphrasis of a couple of lines to avoid using the word ، cat. It was only in extempore speaking that a ray of his real genius could indiscreetly betray itself. One may judge what labour such a superrefinement of taste would inflict upon a man writing in a language not his own to some distinguished statesman, or some literary institution,-knowing that language just well enough to recognise all the native elegances he failed to attain. Trevanion, at that very moment, was employed upon a statistical document, intended as a communication to a Society at Copenhagen, of which he was an honorary member. It had been for three weeks the torment of the whole house, especially of poor Fanny, (whose French was the best at our joint disposal.) But Trevanion had found her phraseology too mincing, too effeminate, too much that of the boudoir. Here, then, was an opportunity to introduce my new friend, and test the capacities that I fancied he possessed. I therefore, though with some hesitation, led the subject to "Remarks on the Mineral Treasures of Great Britain and Ireland," (such was the title of the work intended to enlighten the savans of Denmark ;) and, by certain ingenious circumlocutions, known to all able applicants, I introduced my acquaintance with a young gentleman who possessed the most familiar and intimate knowledge of French, and who might be of use in revising the manuscript. I knew enough of Trevanion, to feel that I could not reveal the circumstances under which I had formed that acquaintance, for he was much too practical a man not to have been frightened out of his wits at the idea of submitting so classical a performance to so disreputable a scapegrace. As it was, however, Trevanion, whose mind at that moment. was full of a thousand other things, caught at my suggestion, with very little cross-questioning on the subject, and, before he left London, consigned the manuscript to my charge. 66 My friend is poor," said I timidly. "Oh! as to that," cried Trevanion hastily, "if it is a matter of charity, I put my purse in your hands; but don't put my manuscript in his! If it is a matter of business, it is another affair, and I must judge of his work before I can say how much it is worth-perhaps nothing!" So ungracious was this excellent man in his very virtues ! Nay," said I, "it is a matter of business, and so we will consider it." "In that case," said Trevanion, concluding the matter, and buttoning his pockets," if I dislike his work, nothing; if I like it, twenty guineas. Where are the evening papers?" and in another moment the member of parliament had forgotten the statist, and was pishing and tutting over the Globe or the Sun. On Thursday, my uncle was well enough to be moved into our house; and on the same evening, I went forth to keep my appointment with the stranger. The clock struck nine as we met. The palm of punctuality might be divided between us. He had profited by the interval, since our last meeting, to repair the more obvious deficiencies of his wardrobe ; and though there was something still wild, dissolute, outlandish, about his whole appearance, yet in the elastic energy of his step, and the resolute assurance of his bearing, there was that which Nature gives to her own aristocracy,-for, as far as my observation goes, what has been called the "grand air" (and which is wholly distinct from the polish of manner, or the urbane grace of high breeding,) is always accompanied, and perhaps produced, by two qualities-courage, and the desire of command. few moments in silence; at length thus commenced the STRANGER, "You have found it more difficult, I fear, than you imagined, to make the empty sack stand upright. Considering that at least one third of those born to work cannot find it, why should I?" PISISTRATUS.-I am hard-hearted enough to believe that work never fails to those who seek it in good earnest. It was said of some man, famous for keeping his word, that "if he had promised you an acorn, and all the oaks in England failed to produce one, he would have sent to Norway for an acorn." If I wanted work, and there was none to be had in the Old World, I would find my way to the New. But, to the point: I have found something for you, which I do not think your taste will oppose, and which may open to you the means of an honourable independence. But I cannot well explain it in the streets, where shall we go? STRANGER (after some hesitation.)-I have a lodging near here, which I need not blush to take you to -I mean, that it is not among rogues and castaways. PISISTRATUS (much pleased, and taking the stranger's arm.) Come, then. Pisistratus and the stranger pass over Waterloo Bridge, and pause before a small house of respectable appearance. Stranger admits them both with a latch-key-leads the way to the third story-strikes a light, and does the honours to a small chamber, clean and orderly. Pisistratus explains the task to be done, and opens the manuscript. The stranger draws his chair deliberately towards the light, and runs his eye rapidly over the pages. Pisistratus trembles to see him pause before a long array of figures and calculations. Certainly it does not look inviting; but, pshaw! it is scarcely a part of the task, which It is limits itself to the mere correction of words. more common to a half-savage nature than one wholly civilised. The Arab has if, so has the American Indian; and I suspect it was more frequent among the knights and barons of the middle ages than it is among the polished gentlemen of the modern drawing-room. We shook hands, and walked on a STRANGER (briefly.)-There must be a mistake here. Stay!-I see,[He turns back a few pages, and corrects with rapid precision an error in a somewhat complicated and abstruse calculation.] PISISTRATUS (surprised.) - You seem a notable arithmetician. STRANGER. Did I not tell you that I was skilful in all games of mingled skill and chance? It requires an arithmetical head for that: a first-rate card-player is a financier spoilt. I am certain that you could never find a man fortunate on the turf, or at the gaming-table, who had not an excellent head for figures. Well, this French is good enough apparently there are but a few idioms, here and there, that, strictly speaking, are more English than French. But the whole is a work scarce worth paying for! PISISTRATUS. The work of the head fetches a price not proportioned to the quantity, but the quality. When shall I call for this? STRANGER.-To-morrow. [And he puts the manuscript away in a drawer.] We then conversed on various matters for nearly an hour; and my impression of this young man's natural ability was confirmed and heightened. But it was an ability as wrong and perverse in its directions or instincts as a French novelist's. He seemed to have, to a high degree, the harder portion of the reasoning faculty, but to be almost wholly without that arch beautifier of character, that sweet purifier of mere intellect-the imagination. For, though we are too much taught to be on our guard against imagination, I hold it, with Captain Roland, to be the divinest kind of reason we possess, and the one that leads us the least astray. In youth, indeed, it occasions errors, but they are not of a sordid or debasing nature. Newton says that one final effect of the comets is to recruit the seas and the planets by a condensation of the vapours and exhalations therein; and so even the erratic flashes of an imagination really healthful and vigorous deepen our knowledge and brighten our lights; they recruit our seas and our stars. Of such flashes my new friend was as innocent as the sternest matter-of-fact person could desire. Fancies he had in profusion, and very bad ones; but of imagination not a scintilla! His mind was one of those which live in a prison of logic, and cannot, or will not, see beyond the bars: such a nature is at once positive and sceptical. This boy had thought proper to decide at once on the numberless complexities of the social world from his own harsh experience. With him the whole system was a war and a cheat. If the universe were entirely composed of knaves, he would be sure to have made his way. Now this bias of mind, alike shrewd and unamiable, might be safe enough if accompanied by a lethargic temper; but it threatened to become terrible and dangerous in one who, in default of imagination, possessed abundance of passion: and this was the case with the young outcast. Passion, in him, comprehended many of the worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of wealth, but the cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this poor boy—his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere-had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into prejudices against him. Irascible, envious, arrogantbad enough, but not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold repellant cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed in him no moral susceptibility; and, what was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the true point of honour. He had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no apparent wish for fame, or esteem, or the love of his species; only the hard wish to succeed, not shine, not serve,-succeed, that he might have the right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit, and enjoy the pleasures which the redundant nervous life in him seemed to crave. Such were the more patent attributes of a character that, ominous as it was, yet interested me, and yet appeared to me redeemable,-nay, to have in it the rude elements of a certain greatness. Ought we not to make something great out of a youth under twenty who has, in the highest degree, quickness to conceive and courage to execute? On the other hand, all faculties that can make greatness contain those that can |