‘But you expressed such contrary opinions the other day.’
‘The fact is, that when in the West Indies I suffered from a severe attack of yellow fever, and the remedial appliances so affected my mind that for some time I had to be placed under restraint. Thanks to the skill of a clever practitioner, I am cured; but my old malady still shews itself in occasional fits of uncontrollable obstinacy.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ say I; ‘but are you not a military man?’
‘Yes; I was captain in the ——th Regiment.’
Captain B——! My mind reverts to the story I had heard on the morning of our first meeting. But was our friend as thoroughly cured as his ex-keeper seemed to imagine? I can’t say, but I know that he is an excellent neighbour. He treats his misadventure as a capital joke; and it is likely to be a stock story for the rest of his life how he was fined forty shillings by the railway company, because another passenger had infringed by-law No. 7!
THE LITTLE DOG MATCH.
Fifty years ago my great-grandmother sat in the porch of her cottage, looking with pleasure on the fragrant flowers growing in her garden and listening to the song of her canaries hanging over her head. It was a sultry August evening; and gradually the sky overcast, a solemn stillness stole over the scene, while large drops of rain and heavy claps of thunder denoted the approach of a storm. She rose and removed her birds to the interior of the cottage. On returning to the open door she saw a woman dragging wearily up the garden-path followed by a lean and hungry-looking dog.
‘For the love of mercy, ma’am,’ began the tramp, ‘please to buy a box or two of matches of a poor woman, for I’ve not tasted food this blessed day.’
My great-grandmother looked at her with pity. Benevolence formed a large ingredient in her character. Here stood a fellow-creature whose forlorn appearance and sickly countenance denoted her condition as plainly as her words; while the famished animal beside her was evidently unable to travel farther. The good old lady spoke at once in her primitive hospitality.