"
"I don't think that I--I am going to sail, Jack," was the hesitating
answer.
"Look here, old fellow, are you off your head, or have you been
liquoring up, or what?"
"No--that is, I don't think so; certainly not the first--the second, I
mean."
"Then what do you mean?"
"I mean that, in short, I am sending in my papers. I like this climate
--I, in short, am going to take to farming."
"Sending in your papers! Going to take to farming! And in this
God-forsaken hole, too. You _must_ be screwed."
"No, indeed. It is only ten o'clock."
"And how about getting married, and the girl you are engaged to, and
whom you are looking forward so much to seeing. Is she going to take to
farming?"
Bottles winced visibly.
"No, you see--in short, we have put an end to that. I am not engaged
now."
"Oh, indeed," said the friend, and awkwardly departed.
II
Twelve years have passed since Bottles sent in his papers, and in twelve
years many things happen. Amongst them recently it had happened that our
hero's only and elder brother had, owing to an unexpected development
of consumption among the expectant heirs, tumbled into a baronetcy and
eight thousand a year, and Bottles himself into a modest but to him most
ample fortune of as many hundred.
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