tenure of it was short of patriarchal. All these, accompanied by a face
redolent of intense humor, and a voice whose modulations were managed with
the skill of a consummate artist,--all these, I say, were above me to
convey; nor indeed as I re-read any of the adventures in which he figures,
am I other than ashamed at the weakness of my drawing and the poverty of my
coloring.

That I had a better claim to personify him than is always the lot of a
novelist; that I possessed, so to say, a vested interest in his life and
adventures,--I will relate a little incident in proof; and my accuracy, if
necessary, can be attested by another actor in the scene, who yet survives.

I was living a bachelor life at Brussels, my family being at Ostende
for the bathing, during the summer of 1840. The city was comparatively
empty,--all the so-called society being absent at the various spas or baths
of Germany. One member of the British legation, who remained at his post to
represent the mission, and myself, making common cause of our desolation
and ennui, spent much of our time together, and dined _tête-à-tête_ every
day.

It chanced that one evening, as we were hastening through the park on
our way to dinner, we espied the major--for as major I must speak of
him--lounging along with that half-careless, half-observant air we had both
of us remarked as indicating a desire to be somebody's, anybody's guest,
rather than surrender himself to the homeliness of domestic fare.

"There's that confounded old Monsoon," cried my diplomatic friend. "It's
all up if he sees us, and I can't endure him."

Now, I must remark that my friend, though very far from insensible to the