"What road do you take?"

"Strasburg, Paris, Marseilles, whence direct to Constantinople by the first steamer."

"After that?"

"Across the Black Sea to Balaklava."

"But when do you reach the Crimea?"

"Balaklava is _in_ the Crimea."

Davis flushed scarlet. The reflection on his geography wounded him, and he winced under it.

"Are you quite clear that you understand my instructions?" said he, testily.

"I wish I was as sure of a deanery," said Paul, smacking his lips over the last glass.

"You can scarcely wish over-well to the Church, when you desire to be one of its dignitaries," said Davis, with a sarcastic grin.

"Why so, my worthy friend? There is a wise Scotch adage says, 'It taks a' kind of folk to mak a warld;' and so, various orders of men, with gifts widely differing, if not discrepant, are advantageously assembled into what we call corporations."

"Nonsense,--bosh!" said Grog, impatiently. "If you have no better command of common-sense where you are going, I have made a precious bad choice of an agent."

"See how men misconstrue their own natures!" exclaimed Classon, with a sort of fervor. "If any one had asked me what gift I laid especial claim to possess, I protest I should have said 'common-sense;' a little more common-sense than any one else I ever met."

"You are modest too."

"Becomingly so, I hope and believe."

"Have you any other remarkable traits that you might desire to record?"

"A few, and a very few," said Paul, with a well-assumed air of humility.

"Nature has blessed me with the very best of tempers. I am never rash, hasty, or impetuous; I accept the rubs of life with submission; I think well of every one."

"Do you, faith!" exclaimed Davis, with a scornful laugh.

"Knowing well that we are all slaves of circumstances, I take motives where others demand actions, just as I would take a bill at three months from him who has no cash. It may be paid, or it may not."

"You'd have passed it ere it became due, eh, Master Paul?"

"Such is possible; I make no claims above human frailty."

"Is sobriety amongst your other virtues?"

"I rarely transgress its limits, save when alone. It is in the solitary retirement where I seek reflection that I occasionally indulge. There I am, so to say, 'Classo cum Classone.' I offer no example to others,--I shock no outward decorum. If the instinctive appreciation of my character--which I highly possess--passes that of most men, I owe it to those undisguised moments when I stand revealed to myself. Wine keeps no secrets; and Paul Classon drunk appeals to Paul Classon sober. Believe me, Kit, when I tell you no man knows half the excellent things in his own heart till he has got tipsy by himself!"

"I wish I had never thought of you for this affair," said Davis, angrily.

"Pitt made the same speech to Wolfe, and yet that young general afterwards took Quebec."

"What do I care about Wolfe or Quebec? I want a particular service that a man of moderate brains and a firm purpose can accomplish."

"And for which Paul Classon pledges himself with his head? Ay, Grog Davis, that is my bond."

"The day you come back to me with proof of success, I hand you five hundred pounds."

"Cash?"

"Cash,--and more, if all be done to our entire satisfaction. _He_--"

here he jerked up his thumb towards Beecher's room--"_he_ sha'n't forget you."

Paul closed his eyes, and muttered something to himself, ending with, "And 'five pounds for the Cruelty to Animals,--from the Reverend Paul Classon.' I shall be in funds for them all."

"Ah, Kit!" said he at last, with a deep-drawn sigh, "what slaves are we all, and to the meanest accidents too,--the veriest trifles of our existence. Ask yourself, I beseech you, what is it that continually opposes your progress in life,--what is your rock ahead? Your name!

nothing but your name!--call yourself Jones, Wilkins, Simpson, Watkins, and see what an expansion it will give your naturally fine faculties.

Nobody will dare to assert that you or I are the same men we were five-and-twenty or thirty years ago, and yet _you_ must be Davis and _I_ must be Classon, whether we will or not. I call this hard,--very hard indeed!"

"Would it be any benefit to me if I could call myself Paul Classon?"

said Grog, with an insolent grin.

"It is not for the saintly man who bears that name to speak boastfully of its responsibilities--"

"In bills of exchange, I O U's, promissory notes, and so forth," laughed in Grog.

"I have, I own, done a little in these ways; but what gifted man ever lived who has not at some time or other committed his sorrows to paper.

The misfortune in my case was that it was stamped."

"Do you know, Holy Paul, I think you are the greatest 'hemp' I ever met."

"No, Kit, don't say so,--don't, my dear and valued friend; these words give me deep pain."

"I do say it, and I maintain it!"

"What good Company you must have kept through life, then!"

"The worst of any man in England. And yet," resumed he, after a pause, "I 'm positively ashamed to think that my daughter should be married by the Reverend Paul Classon."

"A prejudice, my dear and respected friend,--a prejudice quite beneath your enlarged and gifted understanding! Will it much signify to you if he, who one of these days shall say, 'The sentence of this court, Christopher Davis, is transportation beyond the seas,' be a Justice of the Common Pleas or a Baron of the Exchequer? No, no, Kit; it is only your vain, conceited people who fancy that they are not hanged if it was n't Calcraft tied the noose!"

More than once did Davis change color at this speech, whose illustrations were selected with special intention and malice.

"Here 's daybreak already!" cried Grog, throwing open the window, and admitting the pinkish light of an early dawn, and the fresh sharp air of morning.

"It's chilly enough too," said Classon, shivering, as he emptied the gin into his glass.

"I think you 've had enough already," said Grog, rudely, as he flung both tumbler and its contents out of the window. "Go, have a wash, and make yourself a little decent-looking; one would imagine, to see you, you had passed your night in the 'lock-up'!"

"When you see me next, you 'll fancy I 'm an archdeacon." So saying, and guiding himself by the chairs, Paul Classon left the room.