Frank had been a difficulty from childhood. He had not been more spoilt than most boys are, though certainly his invalid mother had been most indulgent; but there was a moral bias by nature in his disposition, which somehow seemed to make him, just as he was apparently going straight for a certain goal, turn right off in a very unpleasantly-rounded curve. Quite early in his youth he had to be recalled, to save expulsion from a certain school, on account of his heading a series of raids upon various orchards, and in defiance of divers corrections on the principal's part. He had to return home from his two next schools for various offences against their rules, and finally his college career came to an end with rustication. Frank laughed, and said that he did not know how it was. One thing, he said, was evident: he was not cut out for the church, and he would not go back to college when the term of his rustication was at an end. A clerkship was obtained for him then, through great interest, in the Treasury, and here for three or four years he got along pretty well, the confinement not being great, and the number of friends he met with being of a character to suit his taste. There were bounds, though, even in those days, to the limits accorded to a gentlemanly clerk of good birth, and when Frank took to absenting himself from the office for a week at a time, matters became serious. For the first time or two the plea of illness was accepted, but when another absence occurred, also from illness, and Mr Frank Mallow was seen by his superiors riding a showy-looking hack in the park, and was known to have given a bachelors' party in the same week, to which several fellow-clerks were invited, it became necessary to hint to the peccant youth that the next time he was unwell, a certificate to that effect would be necessary from some well-known medical man. Frank was ill again, so he sent in word to the office, and stayed away for another week, after which, on presenting himself, he received a warning--one which he bore in mind for a couple of months, and then his head must have once more been very bad, for there was a fresh absence, and this endured so long that Frank's seat in the Treasury knew him no more. "Well, it don't matter, mother," he said. "It was a wretched set-out, and I was sick of the eternal copying." "But it was such a pity, dear," his mother said, in a tone of remonstrance. "Pity? Stuff! Eighty pounds a year, and a rise of ten pounds annually! Not bricklayer's wages, and all the time people think it's such a tremendous thing to be a Treasury clerk." "Poor papa is so vexed and grieved, for he took such pains to get you the appointment." "Then poor papa must get pleased again," said the young man, petulantly. "I cannot, and I will not, stand a clerk's desk. I'd sooner enlist." "Frank!" cried his mother, reproachfully.