22 U Al;\\ K K \\<nil)J,AM>S. 



weak! Come, Mr. Forester, we harn't drinked yet, and 

 I'm kind o' gittin dry!" 



And now the mirth waxed fast and furious — the cham- 

 pagne speedily was finished, the supper things cleared off, 

 hot water and Starke's Ferintosh succeeded, cheroots were 

 lighted, we drew closer in about the fire, and, during the 

 circulation of two tumblers — for to this did Harry limit 

 us, having the prospect of unsteady hands and aching 

 heads before him for the morrow — never did I hear more 

 genuine and real humor, than went round our meiTy trio. 



Tom Draw, especially, though all his jokes were not 

 such altogether as I can venture to insert in my chaste 

 paragraphs, and though at times his oaths were too ex- 

 travagantly rich to brook repetition, shone forth resplen- 

 dent. No longer did I wonder at what I had before deemed 

 Harry Archer's strange hallucination; Tom Draw is a 

 decided genius — rough as a pine knot in his native woods 

 — but full of mirth, of shrewdness, of keen mother wit, of 

 hard horse sense, and last, not least, of the most genuine 

 milk of human kindness. He is a rough block ; but, as 

 Harry says, there is solid timber under the uncouth bark 

 enough to make five hundred men, as men go now-a-days 

 ■in cities! 



At ten o'clock, thanks to the excellent precautions of my 

 friend Harry, we were all snugly berthed, before the 

 whiskey, which had well justified the high praise I had 

 heard lavished on it, had made any serious inroads on our 

 understanding, but not before we had laid in a qv-antwm 

 to insure a good night's rest. 



Bright and early was I on foot the next day, but before 

 I liad half dressed myself I was assured, by the clatter of 

 the breakfast things, that Archer had again stolen a march 

 upon me; and the next moment my bed-room door, driven 

 open b,y the thick boot of that worthy, gave me a full 

 view of his person — arrayed in a stout fustian jacket — 

 with half a dozen pockets in full view, and Heaven only 

 knows how many more lying perdu in the broad skirts. 

 Knee-breeches of the same material, with laced half-boots 

 and leather leggins, set off his stout calf and well turned 

 ankle. 



"Up! up! Frank." he exclaimed, "it is a morning of ten 

 thousand; there has been quite a heavy dew, and by the 

 time we are afoot it will be well evaporated; and then the 



