connexion with any of the advertising fraternity.—
Yours obediently,
                         “NATHANIEL LEVI, &c. &c.”

The third enclosed a neatly-printed pamphlet,
emanating from the “Military, Naval, Civil,
and Volunteer Loan and Discount Agency Company,
Limited,” and was entitled, “Hints to
Borrowers.” It contained some twenty pages of
advice to these unfortunates as to the various
kinds of securities available, together with the
best way of negotiating them, and wound up
with a strong recommendation of the “Military,
Naval, &c., &c., Company, Limited,” as a means
for forwarding such transactions.

These letters being a fair sample of what
Chester and every officer in his regiment had
been receiving daily since their return to England,
it is not surprising that our intending
borrower did not jump at the very promising
offers they contained.

A step sounded on the staircase, and Esdale,
the officer whose company Frank was about to
purchase, strolled in.

“How d’you do, Esdale?”

“How are you, Chester? More accommodating
friends, I see; what is it this time?”

“The old story,” replied Frank. “But
seriously, Esdale, I want to go to one of these
fellows for your six hundred, till I can raise
the money elsewhere, and I don’t know how to
set about it.”

“The easiest thing in the world, my dear
boy; go up to old Leverson, Cavendish-court;
I’ll give you my card, and he’ll let you have it
without any fuss, and you may be sure he won’t
send your paper flying all over town for want
of an owner. I’ve had hundreds from him,
and never found him wanting yet.”

“How about interest?” asked Frank, cautiously.

“Oh, anything from five to fifty per cent, I
fancy; but that won’t be much, for I suppose
you’ll exchange, and get the money that way.”

“Well, yes. I—I suppose I shall,” said
Frank, put ill at ease with himself by the recollection
of Milly at home, and his promise touching
the baby.

It was not until night that Frank told his
wife what had passed between him and Esdale,
and announced his intention to go up to town
by the morning train, and see Mr. Leverson
personally.

Cavendish-court was not easily found next day,
when he went up to London by early train. It
was a dingy smoke-dyed lane lying somewhere
near Charing-cross, between the railway terminus
and Whitehall; Mr. Leverson’s abode was the
dingiest and most smoke-dyed house in the court;
and, as Frank knocked, he could not help wondering
how a capitalist of such means as Mr.
Leverson could condescend to inhabit such a
place. However, the door opening, cut his
wonder short, and finding from the sallow undersized
boy who answered his knock, that the
capitalist was within, he entered a dingy office
containing a high desk, ink-stained, and strewn
with papers, an old almanac, a print of Martin’s
Last Day, and as dirty a window as Frank had
ever seen.

Leaving him in this unpromising room, the
boy disappeared through a second door; then
reappeared with the request that Frank would
walk in, as Mr. Leverson was quite at leisure.

Frank had pictured to himself a thin, pinched,
querulous old man, with one hand on a cheque
book and one leg in the grave, who would
screw him down to the lowest point, or pay one-half
his advance in bad pictures or worse wines.
Mr. Leverson was a stout hearty man of some
forty years of age, with a rosy face dimpled into a
continual smile; slightly bald, but with what
hair he had, carefully made the most of; he was
dressed in plain grey, and wore no rings, chains,
or any of the jewellery conventionally associated
with the persons of money-lenders.

He was seated in a comfortable arm chair by
the side of a handsome secretaire. A bird was
hanging in the window; several cheap engravings,
prettily framed, ornamented the walls,
which were covered with a paper all rose buds
and trellis work.

On Frank’s entrance he rose, and cordially
held out his hand, pushing a chair forward
opposite his own, and smiling as if he had
known, and had been expecting, Chester all his
life.

“From Captain Esdale—one of my oldest
and best friends,” he began, reading the card
which Frank handed to him. “And how, may
I ask, did you leave Captain Esdale, sir? In
good health, I trust, as usual?”

“Yes, I believe, much as usual,” answered
Frank; “he recommended me to you as—”

“Ah! exactly so,” interrupted the capitalist,
smiling in the greatest good humour, “the
captain always remembers his friends. What
deliciously warm weather! Quite summery for
April, and prospects of a magnificent harvest,
sir!”

Frank assented: not that he knew much, or
cared much, about the harvest just then.

“Are you making a long stay in London,
Mr. Chester? Good name; very good name.
Any connexion of General Chester?”

“Only distantly—a connexion, nothing more.
We have but few relatives living, and they are
abroad.”

“I see, sir. In India I presume? Charming
country! And the pay so good too there. Quite
an elysium for young officers, I am told.”

Frank hadn’t found it exactly an elysium,
but he said nothing to the contrary. “Everything
depends on this fellow’s being in a good
humour,” he thought. So he merely assented
with a laugh, and tried to bring the conversation
round to the matter nearest his heart.

“I called to see you, Mr. Leverson—” he
began, blushing.

“What ever you want, you know. No questions.
A small temporary accommodation. I
hear the winner of the Derby stands at sixty to
one; capital chance to make a good thing. What
shall I say, twenty, fifty, a hundred? Say the