A lucky dog? Yea, verily, that is what he was. He was welcomed at every mess, and he had the entrée of every house in Quebec. He could drink harder than any man in the regiment, and dance down a whole regiment of drawing-room knights. He could sing better than any amateur I ever heard; and was the best judge of a meerschaum-pipe I ever saw. Lucky? Yes, he was—and especially so, and more than all else—on account of the joyousness of his soul. There was a contagious and a godlike hilarity in his broad, open brow, his frank, laughing eyes, and his mobile lips. He seemed to carry about with him a bracing moral atmosphere. The sight of him had the same effect on the dull man of ordinary life that the Himalayan air has on an Indian invalid; and yet Jack was head-over-heels in debt. Not a tradesman would trust him. Shoals of little bills were sent him every day. Duns without number plagued him from morning to night. The Quebec attorneys were sharpening their bills, and preparing, like birds of prey, to swoop down upon him. In fact, taking it altogether, Jack had full before him the sure and certain prospect of some dismal explosion.
On this occasion, Jack—for the first time in our acquaintance—seemed to have not a vestige of his ordinary flow of spirits. He entered without a word, took up a pipe, crammed some tobacco into the bowl, flung himself into an easy-chair, and began—with fixed eyes and set lips—to pour forth enormous volumes of smoke.
My own pipe was very well under way, and I sat opposite, watching him in wonder. I studied his face, and marked there what I had never before seen upon it—a preoccupied and troubled expression. Now, Jack's features, by long indulgence in the gayer emotions, had immovably moulded themselves into an expression of joyousness and hilarity. Unnatural was it for the merry twinkle to be extinguished in his eyes; for the corners of the mouth, which usually curled upward, to settle downward; for the general shape of feature, cut-line of muscle, set of lips, to undertake to become the exponents of feelings to which they were totally unaccustomed. On this occasion, therefore, Jack's face did not appear so much mournful as dismal; and, where another face might have elicited sympathy, Jack's face had such a grewsomeness, such an utter incongruity between feature and expression, that it seemed only droll.
I bore this inexplicable conduct as long as I could, but at length I could stand it no longer.
"My dear Jack," said I, "would it be too much to ask, in the mildest manner in the world, and with all possible regard for your feelings, what, in the name of the Old Boy, happens to be up just now?"
Jack took the pipe from his mouth, sent a long cloud of smoke forward in a straight line, then looked at me, then heaved a deep sigh, and then—replaced the pipe, and began smoking once more.
Under such circumstances I did not know what to do next, so I took up again the study of his face.
"Heard no bad news, I hope," I said at length, making another venture between the puffs of my pipe.
A shake of the head.
Silence again.
"Duns?"
Another shake.
Silence.
"Writs?"
Another shake.
Silence.
"Liver?"
Another shake, together with a contemptuous smile.
"Then I give it up," said I, and betook myself once more to my pipe.
After a time, Jack gave a long sigh, and regarded me fixedly for some minutes, with a very doleful face. Then he slowly ejaculated:
"Macrorie!"
"Well?"
"It's a woman!"
"A woman? Well. What's that? Why need that make any particular difference to you, my boy?"
He sighed again, more dolefully than before.
"I'm in for it, old chap," said he.
"How's that?"
"It's all over."
"What do you mean?"
"Done up, sir—dead and gone!"
"I'll be hanged if I understand you."
"Hic jacet Johannes Randolph."
"You're taking to Latin by way of making yourself more intelligible, I suppose."
"Macrorie, my boy—"
"Well?"
"Will you be going anywhere near Anderson's to-day—the stone-cutter, I mean?"
"Why?"
"If you should, let me ask you to do a particular favor for me. Will you?"
"Why, of course. What is it?"
"Well—it's only to order a tombstone for me—plain, neat—four feet by sixteen inches—with nothing on it but my name and date. The sale of my effects will bring enough to pay for it. Don't you fellows go and put up a tablet about me. I tell you plainly, I don't want it, and, what's more, I won't stand it."
"By Jove!" I cried; "my dear fellow, one would think you were raving. Are you thinking of shuffling off the mortal coil? Are you going to blow your precious brains out for a woman? Is it because some fair one is cruel that you are thinking of your latter end? Will you, wasting with despair, die because a woman's fair?"
"No, old chap. I'm going to do something worse."
"Something worse than suicide! What's that? A clean breast, my boy."
"A species of moral suicide."
"What's that? Your style of expression to-day is a kind of secret cipher. I haven't the key. Please explain."
Jack resumed his pipe, and bent down his head; then he rubbed his broad brow with his unoccupied hand; then he raised himself up, and looked at me for a few moments in solemn silence; then he said, in a low voice, speaking each, word separately and with thrilling emphasis:
CHAPTER III.
"MACRORIE—OLD CHAP—I'M—GOING—TO—BE—MARRIED!!!"
At that astounding piece of intelligence, I sat dumb and stared fixedly at Jack for the space of half an hour, he regarded me with a mournful smile. At last my feelings found expression in a long, solemn, thoughtful, anxious, troubled, and perplexed whistle.
I could think of only one thing. It was a circumstance which Jack had confided to me as his bosom-friend. Although he had confided the same thing to at least a hundred other bosom-friends, and I knew it, yet, at the same time, the knowledge of this did not make the secret any the less a confidential one; and I had accordingly guarded it like my heart's blood, and all that sort of thing, you know. Nor would I even now divulge that secret, were it not for the fact that the cause for secrecy is removed. The circumstance was this: About a year before, we had been stationed at Fredericton, in the Province of New Brunswick. Jack had met there a young lady from St. Andrews, named Miss Phillips, to whom he had devoted himself with his usual ardor. During a sentimental sleigh-ride he had confessed his love, and had engaged himself to her; and, since his arrival at Quebec, he had corresponded with her very faithfully. He considered himself as destined by Fate to become the husband of Miss Phillips at some time in the dim future, and the only marriage before him that I could think of was this. Still I could not understand why it had come upon him so suddenly, or why, if it did come, he should so collapse under the pressure of his doom.
"Well," said I, after I had rallied somewhat,