"So I did. That is the amount of the fortune left by the eccentric old hospital-for-incurables founder. When poor Hardy made out his will he made me residuary legatee because the trifle he had to leave--his kit, etcetera,--was not worth dividing between me and Armstrong. If it had been worth much he would have divided it. It is therefore my duty now to divide it with my friend." But in our anxiety to tell you these interesting facts, dear reader, we have run ahead of the tea-fight! To detail all its incidents, all its bearings, all its grand issues and blessed influences, would require a whole volume. We return to it only to mention one or two gratifying facts. It was essentially a temperance--that is, a total-abstinence, a blue-ribbon--meeting, and, at the end, the "Soldiers' Friend" earnestly invited all who felt so disposed to come forward and sign the pledge. At the same time, medals and prizes were presented to those among the civilians who had loyally kept their pledge intact for certain periods of time. On an average, over a thousand pledges a year are taken at the Institute, and we cannot help thinking that the year we are writing of must have exceeded the average--to judge from the numbers that pressed forward on this particular night. There were soldiers, sailors, and civilians; men, women, and children. Amongst the first, Rattling Bill Simkin walked to the front--his moral courage restored to an equality with his physical heroism--and put down his name. So did Johnson and Sutherland--the former as timid before the audience as he had been plucky before the Soudanese, but walking erect, nevertheless, as men do when conscious that they are in the right; the latter "as bold as brass"--as if to defy the world in arms to make him ever again drink another drop of anything stronger than tea. Moses Pyne also "put on the blue," although, to do him justice, he required no protection of that sort, and so did Corporal Flynn and Terence and their mother--which last, if truth must be told, stood more in need of the pledge than her stout sons. Among the civilians several noted personages were influenced in the right direction. Chief among these was sodden, blear-eyed, disreputable Sloper, whose trembling hand scrawled a hieroglyphic, supposed to represent his name, which began indeed with an S, but ended in a mysterious prolongation, and was further rendered indecipherable by a penitent tear which fell upon it from the point of his red, red nose! Some people laughed, and said that there was no use in getting Sloper to put on the blue-ribbon, that he was an utterly demoralised man, that he had no strength of character, that no power on earth could save _him_! They were right. No power on earth could save him--or them! These people forgot that it is not the righteous but sinners who are called to repentance.