18 Heli-fire Dick, (Jan. 
any injudicious questions—a fault that I have observed some people 
are very apt to fall into; and, by saying no more than I was actually 
obliged to say, contrived to pass muster so well, that he pronounced me 
to be a likely young fellow enough, and even went so far as to promise 
me his interest with the club, of which he was the worthy president. But, 
as men are not always sensible of a good offer, I somewhat demurred to 
this scheme, objecting the character of the members of his learned insti- 
tute, when he cut me short with—* Tell truth in Latin, my fine fellow, 
as Frank Watson says, when your green-horns are more bold than man- 
nerly with their tongue. You have heard talk. of Frank Watson ?— 
short Watson we used to call him; for there were two of that name in 
your college—long Watson, and short Watson—though no nearer a-kin 
to each other than you are to Adam. The long one was as tall as a 
popular-tree” this was Dick’s usual name for a poplar, either as an 
elegant epithet, expressive of its popularity—or because, his researches 
being confined to other matters, he was not familiar with its more vulgar 
appellation ‘the long one was as tall as a popular-tree, though I 
never heard there was much in him; he got the wooden spoon, I fancy 
—you know what the wooden spoon is?—Steady, Bess !—what are 
you about, you old jade?” This last was an address, in paren- 
thesis, to the off-leader, who was amusing herself with either biting 
or kissing her neighbour’s neck; I was not learned enough, in the 
ways of horses, to make out which. « But Frank, for a little 
one, was as tight a Jad as any in Cambridge, be the other who he may 4 
—could manceuvre the muffles with any man of his hands; he was a © 
prime scholar too, a senior op; and lost the gold medal only by a neck. 
And then he had such a mort of queer stories!—Be quiet, you old 
jade !’——A second apostrophe to the frolicksome lady Bess. «Te 
was in this very bit of the road—ay, right down by the old oak yonder q 
—that we nearly got upset while I was listening to his tale of Flam _ 
Hall; anda droll one it was, too. Surely” a strong accent on the last — 
syllable “surely you have heard talk of Flam Hall ?—No?—Why, 
it was from that came the saying, ‘Tell truth in Latin.” If you have 
not heard the story before, you may as well hear it now; and I do not 
much mind if I tell it you.” 
I protested that I should take it as a great favour; and Dick accord- 
ingly commenced—though I should premise, that, in repeating the tale, 
I do not undertake to give it word for word in his language’ To do 
that, might baffle a better memory than I can pretend to; for he had a 
peculiar dialect of his own, borrowed from no time and no province, an 
to speak the truth, if given in its native purity, much of it might soun 
rather oddly to those who have been used to the prejudices of polite 
J 
conversation. . < 
O Pixzzdos meoroyites—or, as it may be familiary rendered, Hellfire 
Dick beginneth his narrative. “a 
“ Frank—I always call him Frank, as I have good right to do, for we _ 
were hand-and-glove—Frank, with all his mettle, had some queer fan- _ 
cies at times. After kicking up the devil’s own delight for weeks toge-_ _ 
ther, drubbing the townies, bullying the proctor, and cocking his cap at" 
the vice-chancellor himself, he would sit you down as quiet as a lamb, 
and muz over his books as if there were no more spirit in him than in a 
dead horse. Then, too, he had an odd taste for vagabondizing—taking 
a tour, I think, he called it—amongst the most out-of-the-way places, 
