Watty Nugent!

Everybody thought you were

dead, years ago.

Why in the world did you vanish so suddenly, just as we all thought you were going to make a name in the world?"

"I'll tell all you about it some time or other, uncle. At this present moment I should like something to eat and drink. My provisions got spoilt with salt water in a squall early this morning."

"Come along," said Willie.

"We'll supply

your hunger. The boat will be safe.”

"I'm not afraid of that," he said. "I've left a tame panther in it that's a great pet of mine, and I don't think anybody will touch it if she shows her teeth. You need not look alarmed: she is chained to the boat, and besides she is as quiet as a spaniel.”

They climbed the steep hill to the Manor House, where the wanderer was soon hard at work on cold beef and strong ale, both which he seemed to rejoice in.

"I cannot understand," said Willie, "why

you left London so suddenly. Do you remember all about it? We walked home from some place where we had been supping

"The Cheshire Cheese, wasn't it?"

"Yes. There were several of us, and we left you at the gateway of Middle Temple Lane. I had to go back to Scotland the next morning. Of course, as you never would write letters, I did not expect to hear from you; but when I next visited London, you were gone, and had left no trace."

"It was too bad not to tell you, uncle, seeing you were my only near relation; but I was mad at the moment. You remember-but first let me ask you a question—yet I don't know, I think there's no need."

"What is the lad driving at?" said Willie.

"I guess from the general look of your room, uncle, that you're either a bachelor or a widower. Which is it?"

"A bachelor, Walter,—one of the jolly bachelors of Moray."

"Well, uncle, do you remember pretty Jessy Blair of Elgin, the lass with blue eyes and yellow hair, that everybody went mad about?"

"I should rather think I did," quoth Willie, for indeed she was the heroine of that song which went to the tune of Antony Rowley. "What about that light o' love?"

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Why, she made pretence to love me, the little flirt; and when I came away from Elgin she wrote me letters, very nice at first, but colder and colder gradually, and then, the very day you speak of, in answer to a furious letter of mine, I got one from her saying there were better men than I in Elgin."

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'Just like her," said Willie, laughing. “A born jilt;-she'd have married the devil, and played tricks on him after."

"Well, uncle Willie, you remember that over the whisky punch that night you told me you fancied her, and were going to ask her when you got home. I thought she was safe to have you, and I felt that I could never come

near you again afterwards. So off I went,and have been all over the world since."

"And made money, I hope," said Willie, more Scotorum.

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'Heaps, my dear uncle.

There's a chest down in the boat in charge of my panther, Cleopatra, that would astonish a Jew covetous of jewels. Look here." He took from a

pouch in his belt a rough diamond about the size of a hen's egg, and a nugget of gold that might weigh a dozen pounds.

"A man gave me that nugget in California, because I had nursed him-through a fever, and he had more than he could carry away. The diamond I found in Brazil, and had to fight for. A couple of fellows heard I had it, and watched me to a wayside tavern, and attacked me at midnight in my sleep. They didn't count on Cleopatra, who was sleeping under my bed, and who flew upon them furiously.. One scoundrel lost half a leg, and the other I had nearly squeezed to a mummy."

"You have had some adventures," said Willie.

"Adventures numberless. Why that little boat of mine-the Jessy, I christened her, in honour of you know who, uncle-but she has been more faithful than her godmamma, and has traversed with me a myriad leagues of sea. Didn't I astonish the gondoliers when I ran her into Venice a year ago, and walked up the square of St. Mark with Cleopatra at my heels?"

"And how did you get Cleopatra ?” asked Willie.

She

"She was given me by a Nubian negrothe tallest and blackest fellow I ever saw. was a baby then. This man, whose name was Hathor, and who professed to be descended from an ancient Ethiopian god, had formed a menagerie in a temple attached to one of the pyramids near Gebel-el-Birkel. The people of his tribe fully believed his divine origin, partly because of his colossal stature, and