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BY ORDER OF THE CZAR. 197

away from him ; she had engaged herself to be married to another, and the match was considered to be a good one all round.

" And yet, somehow," he said to himself, " I don't say die ; might as well, of course ; to hope is like locking up stock that you know is as dead as last week's quotations with a view to the future ; may look up some day ; do to leave in one's will as a possible asset, or to schedule in bankruptcy, as Cordiner would say, when he is chaffing old Smudge r might swell out the figures unrealized assets : unrealizable would be the right description. Lucky at cards, unlucky in love ; can't have luck all ways ; if I'd busted perhaps I should, in my despair, have proposed and been accepted. No accounting for what's going to happen in this world; don't know as one can either bull or bear the next, for that matter. Suppose I mustn't complain ; I never ax'd her, sir, she said ; and Fortune has favored me up yonder on 'Change. Cheer up, Sam, don't let your spirits go down, there's many a gal as you knows well no, confound it, that's vulgar ; I'm losing my grip ; hate those horrid comic, bragging masher songs ; wouldn't have Devereux hear me chant a thing like that for a fiver; and I was thinking of Miss Norcott, too; Sam, what are you about? The fact is, I am not the kind of fellow for a girl like that ! Forsyth has style ; handsome chap, too ; knows how to put on side ; then his mother has a title ; he hasn't, that's one thing; father only a knight after all; no better than Tom Wylie ; no better than Vinous Harry ; I could get to be Sir Samuel in time, if I liked ; easy enough, only give your mind, and your stomach, to it in the City, Sir Samuel Selwyn. Well, my forbears were swells down in Yorkshire ; I shouldn't disgrace them ; perhaps I should. Cordiner says one is most distinguished not to be Sir This or That. Old Smudger would call me Sir