THE WARWICK WOODLANDS, 



MY FIRST VISIT. 



DAY THE FIRST. 



IT was a fine October evening when I was sitting on the back 

 stoop of his. cheerful little bachelor's establishment in Mercer 

 street, with my old friend and comrade, Henry Archer. Many 

 a frown of fortune had we two weathered out together ; in many 

 of her brightest smiles had we two revelled never was there a 

 stauncher friend, a merrier companion, a keener sportsman, or a 

 better fellow, than this said Harry ; and here had we two met, 

 three thousand miles from home, after almost ten years of 

 separation, just the same careless, happy, dare-all do-no-goods 

 that we were when we parted in St. James's street, he for the 

 West, I for the Eastern World he to fell trees, and build log 

 huts in the back-woods of Canada, I to shoot tigers and drink 

 arrack punch in the Carnatic. The world had wagged with us 

 as with most others : now up, now down, and laid us to, at last, 

 far enough from the goal for which we started so that, as I 

 have said already, on landing in New York, having heard 

 nothing of him for ten years, whom the deuce should I tumble 

 on but that same worthy, snugly housed, with a neat bachelor's 

 menage, and everything ship-shape about him? So, in the 

 natural course of things, we were at once inseparables. 



Well as I said before, it was a bright October evening, with 

 the clear sky, rich sunshine, and brisk breezy freshness, which 

 indicate that loveliest of the American months, dinner was 

 over, and with a pitcher of the liquid ruby of Latour, a brace 

 of half-pint beakers, and a score my contribution of those 

 most exquisite of smokables, the true old Manilla cheroots, we 

 were consoling the inward man in a way that would have 

 opened the eyes, with abhorrent admiration, of any advocate 



