ness as a junior Bank clerk has at Storr and Mortimer's, or Howell and James's. You are a very generous fellow I have no doubt, and of course the fair Julia thinks you so; but now you see the advantages of this sort of thing-your bill at Pittar and Lattey's, I suppose, is entirely for presents to the fair Julia-Item, a beautiful porcelain inkstand, richly gilt, &c., &c., 40 rupees—Item, a very handsome marble and bronze paper weight with a figure of Cupid, 24 rupees-Item"

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"Well; that will do," interrupted Peregrine, you are not so very far wrong. But how on earth could I help it. It is so very delightful making presents

"And paying for them, too," added Jenks, " especially, as it sometimes happens, when the bills come in, long after the person you have injured yourself to benefit has forgotten the benefits you have conferred. A very pleasant memento of a broken friendship is a long bill from a jeweller's for presents, every single item of which, as you read the list, seems to have Ingratitude,' in capital letters, written over it. I don't mean to say that this will be your case; but such often has been, and will be again."

6

"I have no doubt of it," replied Peregrine, "and I am as likely as any body to test the truth of your remark in my own person; and to see, some of these days, the very presents you are talking about, stuck upon the ornament tables of

my cousin's own house, long after she has ceased to be Miss Poggleton, and I have ceased to be a welcome guest at her table. But," added Peregrine, as though anxious to change the subject, "these debts are a sad bore, and I don't precisely see how I am to get out of them."

"You must constitute me your agent," rejoined Julian Jenks; "you will have more money than you can spend at Arracan-full batta, gun allowance, harness money and all that, with very few opportunities of spending; for I take it for granted that there are no Moores and Hickeys at Akyab, and no Pitteys and Latteys at KhyookPhyoo. If you must make presents, the most that you can do, in that outlandish place, is to send the fair Julia some Burmah boxes or a barrel of Chitagong oysters-and so you will save your money during your rustication, and be able to pay off your bills. Don't be uneasy on that score; I will collect your bills after you are gone, and pay them off them off as fast as I can."

"Thank you, my good fellow," returned Peregrine "but to collect bills in this part of the world is the same as to pay them, for nothing but receipted bills are issued-a most heathenish custom as it is. In England one gets a bill, and has time to look over it, and to make up one's mind about paying it before the money is expected; but here a tradesman sends one a receipted bill, and, whatever time it may happen to come upon one, one is expected to send back the cash

by the bearer. For my part, I like the old English custom of sending in one's bills periodicallyChristmas bills, quarterly bills, or whatever they may happen to be, as a man knows then, when to expect them; but here we get our bills whenever the people we deal with happen to want money, or whenever it is convenient for them to send for it, and they come upon us like claps of thunder, perhaps, when we are least prepared. Well-well -when once I am out of debt, I will stick to the ready-money system."

It is doubtful whether there was ever a person in debt who did not make this resolution, and still more doubtful whether there was ever a person who kept it, and Julian Jenks who, within the last year and a half, had kept his eyes well open, and been daily adding to his stores of experience, thought something of the kind, as he smiled and answered, "There is much to be said, my good fellow, in defence of the present system; for there are very strong reasons why the English one should not be adopted here. We are all, or nearly all of us, birds of passage-here to-day and off to-morrow-and if a tradesman were to wait till Christmas to send in his bill to a Ditcher* or a DumDum-mitet it is more than probable that he would wait till the Ditcher or Dum-Dum-mite had dâked up to Meerut or sailed home to Europe. With a society so changeable as this, the

A resident in Calcutta.

A resident in Dum-Dum.

system you advocate would never operate fairly for both parties, nor is it possible that the regularity you desire should ever be established at all. Besides, we get here our own allowances monthly, not in half-yearly dividends as in England; and it is necessary, in a great many cases, that the tradesman should keep a sharp look out after pay-day to get his money at all. It's very unpleasant I know to get a long bill when you don't expect it; but it must be still more unpleasant for the tradesman not to get his money at all."

"That's true enough," remarked Peregrine Pultuney-" but as it often happens that a man wants to buy more things in one month than in all the eleven others put together, it is very hard upon the purchaser that he should be called upon to disburse, before he-But here we are at the quartermaster-general's; what a great rambling house it is; how shall I ever find the person I am in search of ?"

As he said this, Peregrine Pultuney buckled on his sword and entered the big house in Esplenaderow, where the affairs of the Indian army are mismanaged by a few fortunate officers, and a great number of unfortunate clerks. After climbing up one or two staircases, containing half-a-dozen chuprassies, and getting by mistake into the adjutantgeneral's department. Peregrine stumbled upon an assistant-quarter-master-general, who very politely furnished him with the information he came in search of, and after telling him that the H. C. B.

Seeva would sail for Arracan in about ten days, and that Lieutenant Pultuney would be provided with a passage in it, desired that young officer to leave his address at the office, and told him that he was now permitted to be a gentleman at large until he should learn positively from the department the precise day of the Seeva's sailing.

Peregrine, but too glad to be emancipated from regimental thraldom though only for a few days, sallied downstairs, again, rejoined his friend in the carriage, and was speedily on his way to Chowringhec. Julian Jenks, who, as we have oftentimes had occasion to observe, was the best tempered fellow in the world, had become so thoroughly accustomed, in the course of the last year and a half, to be taken out of his way by his amorous companion, whenever they went in together to Calcutta, that upon the present occasion he regarded it quite as a matter of course, and though his route lay in a totally opposite direction, submitted patiently to be carried to Chowringhee. But when Peregrine, as he neared his uncle's house, announced his intention of not returning to Dum-Dum, but of taking up his abode altogether with the Poggletons, the countenance of Julian Jenks became elongated considerably, and a sudden thought forced itself upon the mind of that fine staunch pattern of a friend, that Peregrine could never again be to him what he had once been, before he knew the "love of women."

A man in love is worth nothing as a friend-no