we have got leave till-what do you call it?— muster; and in the mean time Jenks will furnish the house, whilst I return to my aunt's."

"For aunt, read cousin," whispered Mr. Jenks. "Well, all I can say is," continued Mr. Nixon, "that you will like Dum-Dum much better than Calcutta-confound it, though, what is this?"

Peregrine turned round and close behind him he saw standing, in the attitude of attention, a native soldier, in undress uniform, with his cap on and his shoes off. Peregrine thought he was very disrespectful, and essayed to tell him so in a speech beginning with "kis-waste," (why) and indeed ending with the same; for after that he could not get any further.

The sepoy held a coarse canvas bag in one hand, whilst with the other he presented Mr. Nixon with a chit. Mr. Nixon glanced at the contents, exclaimed "I thought so," and looked not very amiably disposed towards the writer of the note.

"There now," he continued, "think of thatmoney to be deposited in the treasure chest, and another bag to be taken out-that's the bore of this guard-look at the sun, Pultuney-now does it not look fierce enough to turn the very birds on the trees into kabubs ?"*

Peregrine did not know exactly what a kabob was, but he assented to the general truth contained

* Meat cut into small pieces and skewered.

in the sentence last spoken, and observed that it was very hot.

"I wish," continued Mr. Nixon, "that people would keep their own money at home. I always keep mine," a thing which to tell the truth he might easily have done, as he seldom had more than ten rupees in his possession at any one time after pay-day; "but these men in charge of companies and band funds, and canteen funds, are always bothering us to go over in the day-time-I wish they'd be more considerate."

"Why, you must remember, Nixon," interposed Mr. Clay, "that you can easily avoid all this by remaining over at the guard-house; but as it is so uncommonly hot, you had better go there in my gharee."

Peregrine who knew Mr. Nixon of old as a determined grumbler, was not sorry to hear Mr. Clay administer this gentle hint; however, he contented himself with asking if the guard-house was very far off.

"Oh! no," said Mr. Clay, "it's close by-that house in the next compound-a stone's throw only from this. Nixon complains that the billiard-table is not close by, and quite forgets how fortunate we may consider ourselves in having the guard-house and the mess contiguous, so that the officer on guard may be permitted the indulgence of going to the mess house when the arms are turned in. Have you a mind to go and look at the guard-house?"

"by all meansBy the bye, Mr.

"Oh! yes," said Peregrine, wait, Nixon, for Jenks and me. Clay, has that native soldier a right to come into the room with his chacôt on; is it not very disrespectful?"

Mr. Clay laughed and replied, that a native showed his respect by taking off his shoes instead of his hat, and keeping the latter on his head.

"My griffinage again!" exclaimed Peregrine.

So the three young officers went over to the guard-house, and the first thing that Mr. Jenks did, was to ejaculate "Well, if this isn't a confounded hole! I never-"

Mr. Jenks was not far wrong—there was a room, certainly, with a bed in it, and the remains of a torn punkah without ropes, which no human ingenuity could have put into motion-two leaves of a dilapidated old table standing at right angles with one another, and both of them exhibiting a very fair proportion of huge ink-stains upon their superficies, each about the size of the crown of one's hat. It would have been difficult to say how many ink-stands had been upset on that table, or how many gentlemen had amused themselves with drawing trees and faces on its surface. Mat was there none on the floor-neither good, bad, nor indifferent; but there were two chairs, with only cane enough for one between them; and two or three large boards with "regulations" about salutes and other things pasted on them, which the dirt

and the damp together had rendered utterly illegible. Add to these pleasant appearances four walls very much stained with the damp, and a floor very dirty and ink-stained, and the reader will be able to judge whether Mr. Jenks was not justified in calling it "a confounded hole."

As for Peregrine, he made up his mind not to mount guard sooner than he could help, and it is but justice to him to state, that he kept his resolution with the utmost constancy.

Containing a long Letter from our Hero, replete with Wisdom and Morality.

As it is really incumbent on us to keep moving a little faster, we shall suppose Mr. Pultuney to have spent his fortnight with his cousin, to have floundered still deeper into platonism, to have joined his regiment at Dum-Dum, and to have lived there some months before it occurred to him, that in accordance with a long-standing promise, he ought to have written a letter to his brother to acquaint him with the opinions he had formed of men and manners in British India. He had of course duly announced his arrival to his parents; but as his brother was an undergraduate at Oxford, and like himself, of a lively disposition, he judged, with that sagacity for which he was so conspicuous, that a young gentleman so situated would take greater pleasure in an epistle written for his own particular perusal, than in one full of sage details