band that the society of Calcutta were very loud in their complaints about the dust, and that the secretary of the theatre was about to take a benefitall vastly important circumstances, which Peregrine Pultuney did not fail to treasure up in the storehouse of his memory, before he walked away from the reading-desk for the purpose of learning, from some cards over the mantelpiece, that two knives, a pencil-case, and a pocket-handkerchief, had been found in the agency-rooms, without owners; that the latest news from the three presidencies were such and such dates; that Mrs. Witherstalk had opened a boarding-house at Brompton, and that the addresses of three captains and a lieutenant were particularly wanted by somebody or other, who requested information from any body who possessed it. From this latter invitation the attention of Peregrine Pultuney was diverted by a well-known voice, and looking round he saw, now considerably grown, but unaltered in physiognomical expression, the youth, who in the second chapter of our history, figured as "the nervous boy."

The name of the youth was Doleton, and as an old schoolfellow, Peregrine of course was uncommonly glad to see him. He lost no time in expressing himself to that effect; having done which, he asked naturally enough what had brought his nervous friend to Grindaway's.

“I—I—I'm going to India," returned Doleton, -"I am-I give you my word."

"Well," observed Peregrine Pultuney, " more unlikely things than that have happened before now”.

The nervous youth put on a grim smile, and continued, "I say Pultuney, you don't think, do you, that there's any danger, eh?"

"Danger!" exclaimed Peregrine, "I don't know such a word."

Hereupon Mr. Doleton smiled again, and got up a sort of hysterical chuckle. "Well, Pultuney, no more do I—I don't care, you know, not a bit, I only meant that they do say there's to be war in India, and then-"

"Prize-money and promotion," observed Pere

grine.

"Oh! to be sure, very good, excellent," chuckled the nervous youth, who was inwardly writhing all the while," prize-money and promotion. Capital! I don't think I should be afraid."

"Afraid, what on earth is there to be afraid of?" asked Peregrine Pultuney, wonderingly.

"Oh! nothing," replied Mr. Doleton; “I said I shouldn't be afraid, I never am-don't you remember the party we had at school, when old Radix found us out-capital fun! wasn't it?"

Peregrine remembered perfectly well that Doleton had been the whole time in a most unenviable condition of unmistakeable fear, but he contented himself with observing that he agreed with him and thought it had been capital fun.

"Well," continued Doleton, "I've got a cadet

ship, a very fine thing, as you know-by-the-bye, you don't think, do you, that India is such a very bad climate-it's not so bad, is it now, as people generally suppose?"

Peregrine remarked, that never having tried it, he was not qualified to give an answer, but he believed that the place was a little worse than Paradise, and a trifle better than Pandemonium.

"Well," said the nervous youth, "it don't much matter, one can but die once, can you? If one is drowned on the way, one can't die of the cholera morbus, that's very evident, eh! Pultuney?" and the young gentleman enacted the part of a spectre in a fit of facetiousness.

"One certainly can't die twice," remarked Peregrine Pultuney.

66

"No, no, not twice," continued Mr. Doleton; by-the-bye, Pultuney, do you think that drowning is such a very painful death?"

Peregrine Pultuney smiled, made a quotation from Shakspeare's Henry VI., took up his hat and asked Doleton which way he was going. It happened as it often does on these occasions, that the two youths were bound for the same quarter of the metropolis, so Peregrine Pultuney, who was of an eminently social nature, proposed that they should walk on together.

Arm-in-arm they walked up St. Martin's-lane, Peregrine in high spirits, and his companion every now and then seeking consolation from the never

desponding nature of our hero. Peregrine pitied his school-fellow; he pitied, he did not despise the constitutional infirmity of his friend, whose cowardice was a disease which he had no power to keep off, any more than the scarlet fever or the small-pox. We think that cowards are hardly treated by the world; a man cannot help being a coward any more than he can help being a dwarf, both are pitiable, but not contemptible, and Peregrine Pultuney thought so too.

Such of our readers as are acquainted with the intricacies of London, will remember that there is a street, we believe called King-street, which leads from St. Martin's-lane to Covent-garden. At the corner of this street there is, or was, a long openwindowed miscellaneous-looking shop, where old books, diseased violins, decayed pictures and divers other strange articles are exposed for sale, in what we always thought the most uninviting manner in the world. At the opposite corner of the street there was an apple-stall, which was almost as uninviting as the shop; but as it had existed there for some time, we have little doubt that it was not thought so by Londoners in general, who are, we suppose, somewhat more addicted to saliva-polished apples than ourselves.

When Peregrine Pultuney and the nervous youth had reached this identical spot, which they did in less than five minutes after leaving the philanthropic establishment, they became sensible that they were

in the close vicinity of one of those metropolitan popular tumults which go by the name of rows. Peregrine, always ready for a lark, began, in case of necessity, to button up his Petersham over his chest, and to deposit his gloves in the pockets of the same; having done which, he jostled his way through the crowd, dragging with him his reluctant companion, who, in imitation of the "young aspen leaves," in Lalla Rookh, began incontinently to "tremble all over."

"Hallo! what's the matter?" inquired our hero, "what's all this row about?-ch?"

Thus appealed to, one of the by-standers, a ragged looking hobbledehoy, with a thin face and a red nose, made 86 answer, Why, sir,-you see somebody have been a roasting that there nigger-and blackey be inclined to turn restive."

"That's it," remarked Peregrine; and he observed at the same time a fine-looking man with an Indian complexion, jet black moustaches and beard, a white turban and oriental attire, holding forth in broken English and with threatening gestures to a number of riff-raffs, who were laughing at him in front, pulling his dress in the rear, and otherwise annoying the foreigner in a manner peculiarly illustrative of English civility and decorum.

It may already have occurred to the intelligent reader, that in the character of Peregrine Pultuney there was a considerable spice of benevolent quixotry. To help any person, male or female, in distress, was