But nothing in these discoveries would surprise Vivian Standish, for there was little left savouring of "hard experience" that he had not passed through at one time or other of his agitated career. He was no stranger to the secrets of a little city like Ottawa. They are good enough to frighten small boys and women. He, who had plunged into the very heart of the mysteries of life as they are found in the grand metropolises of the whole world, rather interested the comparatively innocent and unsophisticated youth of the Canadian capital, who recognized in him a graduate of that school of experience whose dangerous knowledge was being tasted, as a novelty, yet by them. Inwardly he smiled at the susceptibilities of the youths he came across; he saw mirrored in them the youth of every other corner and nationality of the globe. Worldling though he was, he was capable of very wise reflections, and was given to moralizing in a sort of way. He never made it a premeditated point to draw any unschooled youth into wrong; he did not seek to make any innocent one the victim of an evil influence, as many do who seem to be very active agents of the Author of Evil himself,--young people who cannot gloat over their own spiritual ruin until they have dragged the foolish, weak souls of unsuspecting victims into the wreck they covet for themselves. He was satisfied to be virtuously discreet among the unsuspecting, and be highly companionable among those who were wiser in folly. He was glad to recognize Elersley in a strange city, and Guy, friendly and hospitable ever, took him into his charge until he had him thoroughly initiated into the ways of his adopted life. Guy's room was the scene of many a jovial merry-making for successive nights after Vivian's arrival, and if cigar stumps and empty bottles were ever indicative of rollicking bachelor hospitality, they surely told the tale emphatically of Guy, for a very respectable heap of such _restants_ generally made one conspicuous feature of next morning's "cleaning up" Standish was a jolly fellow, and the others took to him readily; he smoked, drank, jested, or indulged in any other imaginable pastime that was proposed, thus showing himself a complete sympathizer with his new-made friends.