peaks of Himalaya. You pledge your honour that in three months you will
release your friend. The three months expire. To release the one
friend, you catch hold of another--the bill is renewed, premium and
interest thrown into the next pay-day--soon the account multiplies, and
with it the honour dwindles--your NAME circulates from hand to hand on
the back of doubtful paper--your name, which, in all money transactions,
should grow higher and higher each year you live, falling down every
month like the shares in a swindling speculation. You begin by what you
call trusting a friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction--buying
him arsenic to clear his complexion--you end by dragging all near you
into your own abyss, as a drowning man would clutch at his own brother.
Lionel Haughton, the saddest expression I ever saw in your father's face
was when--when--but you shall hear the story--"

"No, sir; spare me. Since you so insist on it, I will give the promise--
it is enough; and my father--"

"Was as honourable as you when he first signed his name to a friend's
bill; and, perhaps, promised to do so no more as reluctantly as you do.
You had better let me say on; if I stop now, you will forget all about it
by this day twelve-month; if I go on, you will never forget. There are
other examples besides your father; I am about to name one."

Lionel resigned himself to the operation, throwing his handkerchief over
his face as if he had taken chloroform. "When I was young," resumed the
Colonel, "I chanced to make acquaintance with a man of infinite whim and
humour; fascinating as Darrell himself, though in a very different way.
We called him Willy--you know the kind of man one calls by his Christian
name, cordially abbreviated--that kind of man seems never to be quite
grown up; and, therefore, never rises in life. I never knew a man called