So vanished from Whitbury, with all his aspirations, poor John Briggs;
and save an occasional letter to his parents, telling them that he
was alive and well, no one heard anything of him for many a year. The
Doctor tried to find him out in London, again and again; but without
success. His letters had no address upon them, and no clue to his
whereabouts could be found.

And Tom Thurnall went to Paris, and became the best pistol-shot
and billiard-player in the Quartier Latin; and then went to St.
Mumpsimus's Hospital in London, and became the best boxer therein,
and captain of the eight-oar, besides winning prizes and certificates
without end, and becoming in due time the most popular house-surgeon
in the hospital: but nothing could keep him permanently at home. Stay
drudging in London he would not. Settle down in a country practice
he would not. Cost his father a farthing he would not. So he started
forth into the wide world with nothing but his wits and his science,
as anatomical professor to a new college in some South American
republic. Unfortunately, when he got there, he found that the annual
revolution had just taken place, and that the party who had founded
the college had been all shot the week before. Whereat he whistled,
and started off again, no man knew whither.

"Having got round half the world, daddy," he wrote home, "it's hard if
I don't get round the other half. So don't expect me till you see me;
and take care of your dear old eyes."

With which he vanished into infinite space, and was only heard of by
occasional letters dated from the Rocky Mountains (where he did shoot
a grizzly bear), the Spanish West Indies, Otahiti, Singapore, the