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With this the jolly gentleman nodded over his candle to his friend, and trotted off to bed.

The Colonel and his friend were light sleepers and early risers. The next morning when Binnie entered the sitting-room he found the Colonel had preceded him. “Hush,” says the Colonel, putting a long finger up to his mouth, and advancing towards him as noiselessly as a ghost.

“What’s in the wind now?” asks the little Scot; “and what for have ye not got your shoes on?”

“Clive’s asleep,” says the Colonel, with a countenance full of extreme anxiety.

“The darling boy slumbers, does he?” said the wag. “Mayn’t I just step in and look at his beautiful countenance whilst he’s asleep, Colonel?”

“You may if you take off those confounded creaking, shoes,” the other answered, quite gravely: and Binnie turned away to hide his jolly round face, which was screwed up with laughter.

“Have ye been breathing a prayer over your rosy infant’s slumbers, Tom?” asks Mr. Binnie.

“And if I have, James Binnie,” the Colonel said gravely, and his sallow face blushing somewhat, “if I have I hope I’ve done no harm. The last time I saw him asleep was nine years ago, a sickly little pale-faced boy, in his little cot, and now, sir, that I see him again, strong and handsome and all that a fond father can wish to see a boy, I should be an ungrateful villain, James, if I didn’t do what you said just now, and thank God Almighty for restoring him to me.”

Binnie did not laugh any more. “By George! Tom Newcome,” said he, “you’re just one of the saints of the earth. If all men were like you there’d be an end of both our trades; and there would be no fighting and no soldiering, no rogues, and no magistrates to catch them.” The Colonel wondered at his friend’s enthusiasm, who was not used to be complimentary; indeed what so usual with him as that simple act of gratitude and devotion about which his comrade spoke to him? To ask a blessing for his boy was as natural to him as to wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when the day was over. His first and his last thought was always the child.

The two gentlemen were home in time enough to find Clive dressed, and his uncle arrived for breakfast. The Colonel said a grace over that meal; the life was begun which he had longed and prayed for, and the son smiling before his eyes who had been in his thoughts for so many fond years.

If my memory serves me right it was at about this time that I, the humble biographer of Mr. Clive Newcome’s life, met him again for the first time since my school days at Grey Friars.

Going to the play one night with some fellows of my own age, and laughing enthusiastically at the farce, we became naturally hungry at midnight, and a desire for Welch Rabbits and good old glee-singing led us to the “Cave of Harmony,” then kept by the celebrated Hoskins, with whom we enjoyed such intimacy that he never failed to greet us with a kind nod. We also knew the three admirable glee-singers. It happened that there was a very small attendance at the “Cave” that night, and we were all more sociable and friendly because the company was select. The songs were chiefly of the sentimental class; such ditties were much in vogue at the time of which I speak.

There came into the “Cave” a gentleman with a lean brown face and long black moustaches, dressed in very loose clothes, and evidently a stranger to the place. At least he had not visited it for a long time. He was pointing out changes to a lad who was in his company; and, calling for sherry and water, he listened to the music, and twirled his moustaches with great enthusiasm.