A WOULD-BE ESTATE PROPRIETOE OE ThE 
OLDEN TIME. 
well beaten, that one could with perfect ease, if he 
chose, ride along at full gallop, could even drive 
four in hand if he liked ; and Mr Diddler congratu- 
lated himself on his great luck. He had heard the 
w^ant, the greatest one of the intending planter, was 
the want of a road to his land, and that all who pur- 
chased, and intended cultivating, spent hundreds and 
thousands in securing and cutting a road ; in fact, 
considered themselves lucky in securing the cutting of 
one at any price, while here was himself, actually by 
mere chance, purchased a piece of ground with a road, 
not only leading straight to it, but actually form- 
ing one of the boundaries of the land. He examined 
it closely, and thought he saw some small writing 
on the laid down line of road, so small that he 
could notread it ; so he gets hold of a pair of spectacles 
which he occasionally used for such contingencies, 
puts them on and sees that the western boundary 
is not so straight as he had thought, but, on the 
contrary, had a great number of sudden turns and 
twists in it, also zig-zags. He had some difficulty 
in following up the writing, as of course it followed 
all the turns and twists of the road. But at last he 
made it out. Could it be? — and he read it several times 
over — there was no doubt on the subject. And he read 
again : The Road to Ruin. He locked . up the deeds, and 
was very grave and silent all day — very thoughtful. 
Queer name that, don’t like it at all. The next day 
he clapped his hand on his thigh exclaiming, “ Well, I am 
a fool, a rare one indeed ; why. Ruin must be the 
Sinhalese name of some place or other, perhaps a large 
and populous village — who knows ? — quite close at hand, 
where all sorts of cheap supplies can be obtained, 
labour, paddy, and what not ; in fact everything for 
money. What a nice piece of luck.” Quite right, Mr, 
Diddler, quite right in every respect except the “nice 
piece of luck,” for walk, ride, or drive, along that road 
with plenty of money in your purse, you will be 
perfectly sure to get everything you want, while your 
money lasts. Make it last as long as you can and make 
the most of it while it lasts, for if ever man was 
or is to be pitied, it is he who, having travelled a 
good way along that road, pleasantly enough and quite 
unconscious of any crisis at hand, puts his hand into 
his pocket and finds it empty. The road now assumes 
a dark and dismal appearance ; all the beautiful 
flowers and gay foliage are gone; you feel wretched, 
miserable and unhappy, the worst of it being that in 
trying to walk slow, you just seem to travel the faster ; 
you feel a something within you, you cannot stop ; 
and the curious thing is you seldom think of turning 
