eyes, and I knew that he was come to draw on his bank. Ere long one of
the pretty blue eyes was shut up, and a fine black one substituted in its
place. He had been engaged, it appeared, in a pugilistic encounter with a
giant of his own Form, whom he had worsted in the combat. "Didn't I pitch
into him, that's all?" says he in the elation of victory; and when I
asked whence the quarrel arose, he stoutly informed me that "Wolf minor,
his opponent, had been bullying a little boy, and that he (the gigantic
Newcome) wouldn't stand it."

So, being called away from the school, I said farewell and God bless you
to the brave little man, who remained a while at the Grey Friars, where
his career and troubles had only just begun.

Nor did we meet again until I was myself a young man occupying chambers
in the Temple, when our rencontre took place in the manner already
described.

Poor Costigan's outrageous behaviour had caused my meeting with my
schoolfellow of early days to terminate so abruptly and unpleasantly,
that I scarce expected to see Clive again, or at any rate to renew my
acquaintance with the indignant East Indian warrior who had quitted our
company in such a huff. Breakfast, however, was scarcely over in my
chambers the next morning, when there came a knock at the outer door, and
my clerk introduced "Colonel Newcome and Mr. Newcome."

Perhaps the (joint) occupant of the chambers in Lamb Court, Temple, felt
a little pang of shame at hearing the name of the visitors; for, if the
truth must be told, I was engaged pretty much as I had been occupied on
the night previous, and was smoking a cigar over the Times newspaper. How
many young men in the Temple smoke a cigar after breakfast as they read