up his line of behaving towards me, was, after all, the most difficult thing to be borne, and I absolutely dreaded to join my regiment, more thoroughly than did ever schoolboy to return to his labour on the expiration of his holidays.  I had framed to myself all manner of ways of avoiding this dread event; sometimes I meditated an exchange into an African corps—­sometimes to leave the army altogether.  However, I turned the affair over in my mind—­innumerable difficulties presented themselves, and I was at last reduced to that stand-still point, in which, after continual vacillation, one only waits for the slightest impulse of persuasion from another, to adopt any, no matter what suggestion.  In this enviable frame of mind I sat sipping my wine, and watching the clock for that hour at which, with a safe conscience, I might retire to my bed, when the waiter roused me by demanding if my name was Mr. Lorrequer, for that a gentleman having seen my card in the bar, had been making inquiry for the owner of it all through the hotel.

“Yes,” said I, “such is my name; but I am not acquainted with any one here, that I can remember.”

“The gentleman has ony arrived an hour since by the London mail, sir, and here he is.”

At this moment, a tall, dashing-looking, half-swaggering fellow, in a very sufficient envelope of box-coats, entered the coffee-room, and unwinding a shawl from his throat, showed me the honest and manly countenance of my friend Jack Waller, of the __th dragoons, with whom I had served in the Peninsula.

Five minutes sufficed for Jack to tell me that he was come down on a bold speculation at this unseasonable time for Cheltenham; that he was quite sure his fortune was about to be made in a few weeks at farthest, and what seemed nearly as engrossing a topic—­that he was perfectly famished, and desired a hot supper, “de suite.”

Jack having despatched this agreeable meal with a traveller’s appetite, proceeded to unfold his plans to me as follows: 

There resided somewhere near Cheltenham, in what direction he did not absolutely know, an old East India colonel, who had returned from a long career of successful staff-duties and government contracts, with the moderate fortune of two hundred thousand.  He possessed, in addition, a son and a daughter; the former, being a rake and a gambler, he had long since consigned to his own devices, and to the latter he had avowed his intention of leaving all his wealth.  That she was beautiful as an angel —­highly accomplished—­gifted—­agreeable—­and all that, Jack, who had never seen her, was firmly convinced; that she was also bent resolutely on marrying him, or any other gentleman whose claims were principally the want of money, he was quite ready to swear to; and, in fact, so assured did he feel that “the whole affair was feasible,” (I use his own expression,) that he had managed a two months’ leave, and was come down express to see, make love to, and carry her off at once.