“They 've gone to pass the winter at Malta. Mamma Keats required a dry, warm climate, and you 'll find them at a little country-house about a mile from Valetta; the Jasmines, I think it's called. I have a brother quartered in the island, and he tells me he has seen them, but they won't receive visits, nor go out anywhere. But, of course, a Royal Highness is always sure of a welcome. Prince Potts is an 'Open, sesame!' wherever he goes.” “What atrocious tobacco this is of yours, Buller!” said I, taking a cigar from his case as it lay on the table. “I suppose that you small fry of diplomacy cannot get things in duty free, eh?” “Try this cheroot; you 'll find it better,” said he, opening a secret pocket in the case. “Nothing to boast of,” said I, puffing away, while he continued to fill up the blanks in my passport. “Would you like an introduction to my brother? He's on the Government staff there, and knows every one. He's a jolly sort of fellow, besides, and you 'll get on well together.” “I don't care if I do,” said I, carelessly; “though, as a rule, your red-coat is very bad style,--flippant without smartness, and familiar without ease.” “Severe, Potts, but not altogether unjust; but you 'll find George above the average of his class, and I think you 'll like him.” “Don't let him ask me to his mess,” said I, with an insolent drawl. “That's an amount of boredom I could not submit to. Caution him to make no blunder of that kind.” He looked up at me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, which I could not interpret He was either in intense enjoyment of my smartness, or Heaven knows what other sentiment then moved him. At all events, I was in ecstasy at the success of my newly discovered vein, and walked the room, humming a tune, as he wrote the letter that was to present me to his brother. “Why had I never hit upon this plan before?” thought I. “How was it that it had not occurred that the maxim of homoeopathy is equally true in morals as in medicine, and that _similia similibus curantur!_ So long as I was meek, humble, and submissive, Buller's impertinent presumption only increased at every moment With every fresh concession of mine he continued to encroach, and now that I had adopted his own strategy, and attacked, he fell back at once.” I was proud, very proud of my discovery. It is a new contribution to that knowledge of life which, notwithstanding all my disasters, I believed to be essentially my gift. At last he finished his note, folded, sealed, and directed it,--“The Hon. George Buller, A.D.C., Government House, Malta, favored by Algernon Sydney Potts, Esq.” “Is n't that all right?” asked he, pointing to my name. “I was within an ace of writing Hampden-Russell too.” And he laughed at his own very meagre jest. “I hope you have merely made this an introduction?” said I. “Nothing more; but why so?”