very heart of the mysteries of life as they are found in the grand
metropolises of the whole world, rather interested the comparatively
innocent and unsophisticated youth of the Canadian capital, who
recognized in him a graduate of that school of experience whose
dangerous knowledge was being tasted, as a novelty, yet by them.
Inwardly he smiled at the susceptibilities of the youths he came across;
he saw mirrored in them the youth of every other corner and nationality
of the globe. Worldling though he was, he was capable of very wise
reflections, and was given to moralizing in a sort of way. He never made
it a premeditated point to draw any unschooled youth into wrong; he did
not seek to make any innocent one the victim of an evil influence, as
many do who seem to be very active agents of the Author of Evil
himself,--young people who cannot gloat over their own spiritual ruin
until they have dragged the foolish, weak souls of unsuspecting victims
into the wreck they covet for themselves. He was satisfied to be
virtuously discreet among the unsuspecting, and be highly companionable
among those who were wiser in folly. He was glad to recognize Elersley
in a strange city, and Guy, friendly and hospitable ever, took him into
his charge until he had him thoroughly initiated into the ways of his
adopted life.

Guy's room was the scene of many a jovial merry-making for successive
nights after Vivian's arrival, and if cigar stumps and empty bottles
were ever indicative of rollicking bachelor hospitality, they surely
told the tale emphatically of Guy, for a very respectable heap of such
_restants_ generally made one conspicuous feature of next morning's
"cleaning up"

Standish was a jolly fellow, and the others took to him readily; he
smoked, drank, jested, or indulged in any other imaginable pastime that