that _he_ shouldn't despair of a fellow even if he didn't come round for weeks--for weeks and weeks and weeks--for months, almost for years. He leaned forward; Lyon leaned forward to listen, and Colonel Capadose mentioned that he knew from personal experience that there was really no limit to the time one might lie unconscious without being any the worse for it. It had happened to him in Ireland, years before; he had been pitched out of a dogcart, had turned a sheer somersault and landed on his head. They thought he was dead, but he wasn't; they carried him first to the nearest cabin, where he lay for some days with the pigs, and then to an inn in a neighbouring town--it was a near thing they didn't put him under ground. He had been completely insensible--without a ray of recognition of any human thing--for three whole months; had not a glimmer of consciousness of any blessed thing. It was touch and go to that degree that they couldn't come near him, they couldn't feed him, they could scarcely look at him. Then one day he had opened his eyes--as fit as a flea! 'I give you my honour it had done me good--it rested my brain.' He appeared to intimate that with an intelligence so active as his these periods of repose were providential. Lyon thought his story very striking, but he wanted to ask him whether he had not shammed a little--not in relating it, but in keeping so quiet. He hesitated however, in time, to imply a doubt--he was so impressed with the tone in which Colonel Capadose said that it was the turn of a hair that they hadn't buried him alive. That had happened to a friend of his in India--a fellow who was supposed to have died of jungle fever--they clapped him into a coffin. He was going on to recite the further fate of this unfortunate gentleman when Mr. Ashmore made a move and every one got up to adjourn to the drawing-room. Lyon noticed that by this time no one was heeding what his new friend said to him. They came round on either side of the table and met while the gentlemen dawdled before going out. 'And do you mean that your friend was literally buried alive?' asked Lyon, in some suspense. Colonel Capadose looked at him a moment, as if he had already lost the thread of the conversation. Then his face brightened--and when it brightened it was doubly handsome. 'Upon my soul he was chucked into the ground!' 'And was he left there?' 'He was left there till I came and hauled him out.' '_You_ came?'