"Now, Vaux," remarked Dr. Radix, “I have called you here to tell me the origin of last night's party," and out spoke Vincent Vaux.

"If you please, sir, it was no fault of Pultuney's; we asked him, all of us together, because he is going to leave. We gave the party to him, sir, and he knew nothing about it before it was all got. Please, sir, we are to blame."

"That will do:" said Dr. Radix. "Vincent Vaux, you may go." Vincent Vaux went, and Dr. Radix continued. "Boys will be boys, I know"-the kind-hearted old gentleman once made' a similar remark, when a rotten egg hit him in the eye-" and boys will have their pranks. I forgive you all, for the good feeling that you have shown, and that they have shown, on the occasion. I forgive you this time, and although I do not reckon it the most grievous of offences" (for Dr. Radix cherished a very clerical love for punch), "I hope not to see it repeated. You, Pultuney are going away; I am sorry to lose you-"

"I am afraid, sir," interrupted Peregrine," that I have given you a great deal of trouble."

"No, Peregrine-no, my dear boy"-resumed the kind old man, "you have not done that-you have been rather wild and I have flogged you; but you have never given me real trouble. You have never done any thing mean, underhanded, or ungentlemanly-never told a lie or deceived me in any way; never betrayed the germs of vice or made

me tremble for your future probity. You have always stood high with your schoolfellows, have been deservedly their favourite, and this says more for you than the commendations of fifty schoolmasters. You have never bullied your juniors, nor cringed to your seniors, nor done one dishonourable act. As for your studies, I am proud of you as my pupil, and now, my boy, you may go, give me your hand. You may depend upon it, Peregrine, you have not a better friend in the world;" and the excellent old gentleman shook his pupil cordially by the hand; whilst the eyes of both glistened with tears.

CHAPTER III.

How Peregrine Pultuney passed at Addiscombe, and what passed there besides.

ADDISCOMBE HOUSE, as all the world knows, or as all the world ought to know, was once the seat of Charles Jenkinson, better known as Lord Liverpool, a minister tolerably respectable, as ministers go in civilized Europe. It was in those days cclebrated as being not only the residence of a great man, but as one of the finest specimens of brick work in the United Kingdom-it is now celebrated as a fine specimen of white wash, and as the East India Company's military seminary; or rather as the Government-house of the said institution, for the seminary consists of a strange congregation of regular white-washed buildings, which belong to the composite order of architecture, it being difficult to say whether they most resemble stables, methodist chapels, or prisons on a small scale.

We must direct the reader's attention to the hall of Government-house, as we have called it; but Addiscombe cadets for distinction's sake call it "the

Mansion." This hall is of tolerable dimensions, and at the time to which we refer, it was crowded with human beings, and doing duty as a waiting-room.

It was early in February, and bitterly cold. There was a fire in the waiting-room it is true, and happy were those who could get near to it; but the unhappy ones were far more numerous, being in the ratio of ten to one. Great coats and cloaks abounded, and old gentlemen looked solemn, and young gentlemen looked nervous, and coachmen and postilions outside looked blue; and altogether there could scarcely have been a more uncomfortable assemblage of people than were gathered together that morning inside and outside of Addiscombe House.

It was the morning on which young gentlemen who are candidates for admission into the company's seminary go thither to have their qualifications for that admission put to the test. Most of the young gentlemen were accompanied by their parents or guardians; and felt themselves in as uncomfortable a position as they had ever experienced in their lives. A thing of this kind is nothing at all when it is over; but it is the waiting, and the suspense, and the delay, and the nervousness, that render it a wretched business at best. The extreme easiness of the examination is the worst feature in it, for one cannot help thinking what a disgrace it would be if one got plucked after all. It is nothing to be plucked in Chinese mathematics and Patagonian philosophy; but to fail in vulgar and decimal frac

tions and Cæsar's commentaries, is no joke. Hanging would be a trifle in comparison.

Amongst the number of great coats congregated in the waiting-room, there was a Petersham of no ordinary pretensions to scientific construction-it was as well built an article as you will wish to see, and it covered as pretty a figure. It would be almost superfluous to inform the reader that the Petersham and the figure were Peregrine Pultuney's.

Perhaps of all the young gentlemen assembled upon this occasion, Peregrine Pultuney was the least embarrassed. It happened fortunately for him that he was rarely troubled with nervous misgivings, and being, as we have before stated, of a philosophic temperament, he always made the best of every thing and consoled himself with wonderful resolution, under every dispensation of providence. So it was, that in the present crisis of affairs, after having satisfied himself thoroughly as to the state of the empire, which he did by the assistance of a Morning Chronicle extracted from the pocket of his Petersham, he began to amuse himself by inspecting the pictorial adornments that graced the walls of the waiting-room. This he did apparently with great complacency; for being the works of different gentlemen-cadets, who had passed out of the seminary, he began to wonder whether he should be able in process of time to daub as well. There was a view of Lows-water by gentleman-cadet Simp