what, as a matter of fact, he often was, a rogue and a knave, mattered little to me at the time.  He was evidently himself ignorant of his potentialities, and in any case they could not spoil my aesthetic enjoyment of a notable performance.  And after all who is to undertake to draw the line between the good man and the bad?  I have known men with regard to whom I was convinced that they were admirably equipped by nature for a career of roguery; somewhere in the backs of their heads I know they carried a complete set of intellectual implements for the task, but no temptation, as it happened, ever came to open the door of that secret chamber, and the unconscious owners of it passed through life honoured by their fellow-citizens, and their actions still smell sweet and blossom in their dust.  Others, of course, were not so fortunate.  Their crisis pursued and captured them, revealed them to themselves and others, and in many cases only left them, alas, after cropping both their hair and their reputations.  But I leave these divagations, which can have but little interest for you.  What I rather wish to do is to recall to your memory the curious personality and the chequered adventures of our common friend, WILFRID COBBYN.

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I met him some six years ago when I was on a visit to my father’s old friend, General TEMPEST, at Dansington.  Most people, I take it, have heard of Dansington, that home of educational establishments, amusement, and retired Indian Generals.  Old General TEMPEST—­LEONIDAS MARLBOROUGH TEMPEST he had been christened by a warlike father, whose military aspirations had been crushed by the necessity for a commercial career, and who had taken it out of fate by devoting his son to heroism at the baptismal font, and by subsequently buying him a commission in a crack regiment—­General TEMPEST was, in the days of which I speak, a hospitable veteran whose amiability and good-nature had survived many severe campaigns in which he had taken and given hard knocks wherever hard knocks were to be found.  His benevolence and hospitality were proverbial far beyond the limits of Dansington, and his daughter CLARA was one of the prettiest girls in the United Kingdom.

On the occasion of this visit I found a fellow guest, the identical WILFRID COBBYN whom I have already mentioned.  He had been there for a fortnight, I learnt from ALEXANDER, the eldest hope of the TEMPESTS, and had made himself a favourite with every member of the family.  How they got to know him I never quite discovered—­indeed, I doubt if any of them could have told me—­and as to his previous history all they seemed to know was that his father had property “somewhere in the West of England,” that he himself had travelled a great deal, and was now close upon thirty years old.  I am free to admit that after my first dinner in his company I had very little inclination to worry myself about the details of his past, so cheerful and fascinating did I find his gay companionship.