"I shall be seventeen my next birthday," said the other, flushing, and not wishing to add that there were eleven months and eight days to run before that event should come off.

"That's a mighty pretty time of life. It gives you a clear four years for irresponsible follies before you come of age. Then you may fairly count upon three or four more for legitimate wastefulness, and with a little, very little, discretion, you never need know a Jew till you're six-and-twenty."

"I beg your pardon, my good fellow," said the other, coloring, half angrily; "I've had plenty to do with those gents already. Ask Nathan whether he has n't whole sheafs of my bills. My guardian only allows me twelve hundred a year,--a downright shame they call it in the regiment, and so I wrote him word. In fact, I told him what our Major said, that with such means as mine I ought to try and manage an exchange into the Cape Rifles."

"Or a black regiment in the West Indies," chimed in O'Shea, gravely.

"No, confound it, he did n't say that!"

"The Irish Constabulary, too, is a cheap corps. You might stand that."

"I don't mean to try either," said the youth, angrily.

"And what does Nathan charge you?--say for a 'thing' at three months?"

"That all depends upon the state of the money-market," said Agincourt, with a look of profoundest meaning. "It is entirely a question of the foreign exchanges, and I study them like a stockbroker. Nathan said one day, 'It's a thousand pities he's a Peer; there's a fellow with a head to beat the whole Stock Exchange.'"

"Does he make you pay twenty per cent, or five-and' twenty for short dates?"

"You don't understand it at all. It's no question of that kind. It's always a calculation of what gold is worth at Amsterdam, or some other place, and it's a difference of, maybe, one-eighth that determines the whole value of a bill."

"I see," said O'Shea, puffing his cigar very slowly. "I have no doubt that you bought your knowledge on these subjects dearly enough."

"I should think I did! Until I came to understand the thing, I was always 'outside the ropes,' always borrowing with the 'exchanges against me,'--you know what I mean?"

"I believe I do," said O'Shea, sighing heavily. "They have been against me all my life."

"That's just because you never took trouble to study the thing. You rushed madly into the market whenever you wanted money, and paid whatever they asked."

"I did indeed! and, what's more, was very grateful if I got it."

"And I know what came of that,--how that ended."

"How?"

"Why, you dipped your estate, gave mortgages, and the rest of it."

O'Shea nodded a full assent.

"Oh, _I_ know the whole story; I 've seen so much of this sort of thing. Well, old fellow," added he, after a pause, "if I 'd been acquainted with you ten or fifteen years ago, I could have saved you from all this ruin."

O'Shea repressed every tendency to a smile, and nodded again.

"I 'd have said to you, 'Don't be in a hurry, watch the market, and I 'll tell you when to "go in."'"

"Maybe it's not too late yet, so give me a word of friendly advice,"

said O'Shea, with a modest humility. "There are few men want it more."

There was now a pause of several minutes; O'Shea waiting to see how his bait had taken, and Agincourt revolving in his mind whether this was not the precise moment for opening his negotiation. At last he said,--

"I wrote that letter I promised you. I said you were an out-and-outer as to ability, and that they could n't do better than make you a Governor somewhere, though you 'd not be disgusted with something smaller. I 've been looking over the vacancies; there's not much open. Could you be a Mahogany Commissioner at Honduras?"

"Well, so far as having had my legs under that wood for many years with pleasure to myself and satisfaction to my friends, perhaps I might."

"Do you know what I 'd do if I were you?"

"I have not an idea."

"I 'd marry,--by Jove, I would!--I 'd marry!"

"I 've thought of it half a dozen times," said he, stretching out his hand for the decanter, and rather desirous of escaping notice; "but, you see, to marry a woman with money,--and of course it's that you mean,--there's always the inquiry what you have yourself, where it is, and what are the charges on it. Now, as you shrewdly guessed awhile ago, I dipped my estate,--dipped it so deep that I begin to suspect it won't come up again."

"But look out for a woman that has her fortune at her own disposal."

"And no friends to advise her."

O'Shea's face, as he said this, was so absurdly droll that Agincourt laughed aloud. "Well, as you observe, no friends to advise her. I suppose you don't care much for connection,--I mean rank?"

"As for the matter of family, I have enough for as many wives as Bluebeard, if the law would let me have them."

"Then I fancy I know the thing to suit you. She's a stunning pretty woman, besides."

"Where is she?"

"At Rome here."

"And who is she?"

"Mrs. Penthony Morris, the handsome widow, that's on a visit to the Heathcotes. She must have plenty of tin, I can answer for that, for old Nathan told me she was in all the heavy transfers of South American shares, and was a buyer for very large amounts."

"Are you sure of that?"

"I can give my word on it. I remember his saying one morning, 'The widow takes her losses easily; she minds twelve thousand pounds no more than I would a five-pound note."

"They have a story here that she's going to marry old Heathcote."

"Not true,--I mean, that she won't have him."

"And why? It was clear enough she was playing that game for some time back."

"I wanted Charley to try his chance," said Agincourt, evading the question; "but he is spooney on his cousin May, I fancy, and has no mind to do a prudent thing."

"But how am I to go in?" said O'Shea, timidly. "If she's as rich as you say, would she listen to a poor out-at-elbows Irish gentleman, with only his good blood to back him?"

"You 're the man to do it,--the very man."

O'Shea shook his head.