LITMIR.BIZ

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yet grateful, proud in my humility, grieved over an abrupt departure, but sustained by a manly confidence in the strength of my own motives. If I read it over once, I read it twenty times; now deeming it too diffuse, now fearing lest I had compressed my meaning too narrowly. Might it not be better to open thus: “Strike, but hear me, dear Crofton, or, before condemning the unhappy creature whose abject cry for mercy may seem but to increase the presumption of his guilt, and in whose faltering accents may appear the signs of a stricken conscience, read over, dear friend, the entire of this letter, weigh well the difficulties and dangers of him who wrote it, and say, is he not rather a subject for pity than rebuke? Is not this more a case for a tearful forgiveness than for chastisement and reproach?”

      Like most men who have little habit of composition, my difficulties increased with every new attempt, and I became bewildered and puzzled what to choose. It was vitally important that the first lines of my letter should secure the favorable opinion of the reader; by one unhappy word, one ill-selected expression, a whole case might be prejudiced. I imagined Crofton angrily throwing the epistle from him with an impatient “Stuff and nonsense! a practised hum-bugger!” or, worse again, calling out, “Listen to this, Mary. Is not Master Potts a cool hand? Is not this brazening it out with a vengeance?” Such a thought was agony to me; the very essence of my theory about life was to secure the esteem and regard of others. I yearned after the good opinion of my fellow-men, and there was no amount of falsehood I would not incur to obtain it. No, come what would of it, the Croftons must not think ill of me. They must not only believe me guiltless of ingratitude, but some one whose gratitude was worth having. It will elevate them in their own esteem if they suppose that the pebble they picked up in the highway turned out to be a ruby. It will open their hearts to fresh impulses of generosity; they will not say to each other, “Let us be more careful another time; let us be guarded against showing attention to mere strangers; remember how we were taken in by that fellow Potts; what a specious rascal he was, – how plausible, how insinuating!” but rather, “We can afford to be confiding, our experiences have taught us trustfulness. Poor Potts is a lesson that may inspire a hopeful belief in others.” How little benefit can any one in his own individual capacity confer upon the world, but what a large measure of good may be distributed by the way he influences others. Thus, for instance, by one well-sustained delusion of mine, I inspire a fund of virtues which, in my merely truthful character, I could never pretend to originate. “Yes,” thought I, “the Croftons shall continue to esteem me; Potts shall be a beacon to guide, not a sunken rock to wreck them.”

      Thus resolving, I sat down to inform them that on my return from a stroll, I was met by a man bearing a telegram, informing me of the dying condition of my father’s only brother, my sole relative on earth; that, yielding only to the impulse of my affection, and not thinking of preparation, I started on board of a steamer for Waterford, and thence for Milford, on my way to Brighton. I vaguely hinted at great expectations, and so on, and then, approaching the difficult problem of Father Dyke’s letter, I said, “I enclose you the priest’s letter, which amused me much. With all his shrewdness, the worthy churchman never suspected how completely my friend Keldrum and myself had humbugged him, nor did he discover that our little dinner and the episode that followed it were the subjects of a wager between ourselves. His marvellous cunning was thus for once at fault, as I shall explain to you more fully when we meet, and prove to you that, upon this occasion at least, he was not deceiver, but dupe!” I begged to have a line from him to the “Crown Hotel, Brighton,” and concluded.

      With this act, I felt I had done with the past, and now addressed myself to the future. I purchased a few cheap necessaries for the road, as few and as cheap as was well possible. I said to myself, Fortune shall lift you from the very dust of the high-road, Potts; not one advantageous adjunct shall aid your elevation!

      The train by which I was to leave did not start till noon, and to while away time I took up a number of the “Times,” which the “Goat” appeared to receive at third or fourth hand. My eye fell upon that memorable second column, in which I read the following: —

      “Left his home in Dublin on the 8th ult, and not since been heard of, a young gentleman, aged about twenty-two years, five feet nine and a quarter in height, slightly formed, and rather stooped in the shoulders; features pale and melancholy; eyes grayish, inclining to hazel; hair light brown, and worn long behind. He had on at his departure – ”

      I turned impatiently to the foot of the advertisement, and found that to any one giving such information as might lead to his discovery was promised a liberal reward, on application to Messrs. Potts and Co., compounding chemists and apothecaries, Mary’s Abbey. I actually grew sick with anger as I read this. To what end was it that I built up a glorious edifice of imaginative architecture, if by one miserable touch of coarse fact it would crumble into clay? To what purpose did I intrigue with Fortune to grant me a special destiny, if I were thus to be classed with runaway traders or strayed terriers? I believe in my heart I could better have borne all the terrors of a charge of felony than the lowering, debasing, humiliating condition of being advertised for on a reward.

      I had long since determined to be free as regarded the ties of country. I now resolved to be equally so with respect to those of family. I will be Potts no longer. I will call myself for the future – let me see – what shall it be, that will not involve a continued exercise of memory, and the troublesome task of unmarking my linen? I was forgetting in this that I had none, all my wearables being left behind at the Rosary. Something with an initial P was requisite; and after much canvassing, I fixed on Pottinger. If by an unhappy chance I should meet one who remembered me as Potts, I reserved the right of mildly correcting him by saying, “Pottinger, Pottinger! the name Potts was given me when at Eton for shortness.” They tell us that amongst the days of our exultation in life, few can compare with that in which we exchange a jacket for a tailed coat. The spring from the tadpole to the full-grown frog, the emancipation from boyhood into adolescence, is certainly very fascinating. Let me assure my reader that the bound from a monosyllabic name to a high-sounding epithet of three syllables is almost as enchanting as this assumption of the toga virilis. I had often felt the terrible brevity of Potts; I had shrunk from answering the question, “What name, sir?” from the indescribable shame of saying “Potts;” but Pottinger could be uttered slowly and with dignity. One could repose on the initial syllable, as if to say, “Mark well what I am saying; this is a name to be remembered.” With that, there must have been great and distinguished Pottingers, rich men, men of influence and acres; from these I could at leisure select a parentage.

      “Do you go by the twelve-fifteen train, sir?” asked the waiter, breaking in upon these meditations. “You have no time to lose, sir.”

      With a start, I saw it was already past twelve; so I paid my bill with all speed, and, taking my knapsack in my hand, hurried away to the train. There was considerable confusion as I arrived, a crush of cabs, watermen, and porters blocked the way, and the two currents of an arriving and departing train struggled against and confronted each other. Amongst those who, like myself, were bent on entering the station-house, was a young lady in deep mourning, whose frail proportions and delicate figure gave no prospect of resisting the shock and conflict before her. Seeing her so destitute of all protection, I espoused her cause, and after a valorous effort and much buffeting, I fought her way for her to the ticket-window, but only in time to hear the odious crash of a great bell, the bang of a glass door, and the cry of a policeman on duty, “No more tickets, gentlemen; the train is starting.”

      “Oh! what shall I do?” cried she, in an accent of intense agony, inadvertently addressing the words to myself: “What shall I do?”

      “There ‘s another train to start at three-forty,” said I, consolingly. “I hope that waiting will be no inconvenience to you. It is a slow one, to be sure, stops everywhere, and only arrives in town at two o’clock in the morning.”

      I heard her sob, – I distinctly heard her sob behind her thick black veil as I said this; and to offer what amount of comfort I could, I added, “I, too, am disappointed, and obliged to await the next departure; and if I can be of the least service in any way – ”

      “Oh, no, sir! I am very grateful to you, but there is nothing – I mean – there is no help for it!” And here her voice dropped to a mere whisper.

      “I

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