Ishmael when “at home,” which, by the way, was not often, for he spent most of his holidays at school. All things considered, a good thing for him? No. For it was not a nice school where his educational lines were cast. It was a very cheap and a very nasty school; one in which he learnt nothing but the art of getting into serious scrapes, and—perhaps the only useful thing he did learn—the art of getting out of them. A bringing up of this kind would have been the ruin of most boys; but it was not so with Arthur. He came of a splendid stock, and the wretched associations of his boyhood and youth, instead of destroying his character, had the effect of forming it. They hardened him. True, they rendered him cynical at an age when one looks for impulsiveness and generosity, and if they had inspired him with a disgust for religion, his mind was absolutely clear of cant. They had taught him utterly to despise sentiment, while leaving him capabilities of generosity and even geniality. And if any one showed him a kindness, he never forgot it.

One day, when he was seventeen, the second master of his school, the clever son of an army Scripture reader, had the unwisdom to strike him. In about ten seconds that ill-advised pedagogue was picking himself up in a corner with a bleeding nose and otherwise in receipt of grievous bodily harm. Expulsion was imminent; but Arthur did not wait for it. He took the first train, went straight to his guardian and told him he wanted to emigrate.

His guardian looked acidly at the tall, handsome stripling before him, and began a severe lecture. He also looked uneasily; for it was evident that Arthur had somehow got to learn that his father had not left him absolutely penniless, which meant that no appeal on the grounds of gratitude would lie—for the expenses of the orphan’s bringing up and education, such as it was, had by no means exhausted the sum which the dead man had left. Of this Arthur had gained a very shrewd idea; but he merely asked for sufficient to pay his passage and a small sum towards a necessary outfit, for he intended to go to one of our colonies.

Then his guardian, unlocking a desk, handed Arthur the sum of thirty-five pounds, and told him—metaphorically, of course, good pious man that he was, yet very plainly—to go to the devil.

He did not go to the devil; he went to the Cape.

Some of my readers may think this a distinction without a difference. Well, that is a matter of opinion. He turned his hand first to one thing, then another; but nothing seemed to answer for long, 

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