“Four, if you'll permit me. Four will do capitally.” “That's all right And now I 'll just step down to Panini myself, and give him a hint about some Burgundy he has got in the cellar.” Like most men yielding to necessity, Heathcote felt discontented and irritated, and no sooner was he alone than he began to regret his having accepted the invitation. What signified a wetting? He was on horseback, to be sure, but he was well mounted, and it was only twelve miles,--an hour or an hour and a quarter's sharp canter; and as to the torrents, up to the girths, perhaps, or a little beyond,--it could scarcely come to swimming. Thus he argued with himself as he walked to and fro, and chafed and fretted as he went. It was in this irritated state O'Shea found him when he came back. “We 're all right. They 've got a brace of woodcock below stairs, and some Pistoja mutton; and as I have forbidden oil and all the grease- pots, we 'll manage to get a morsel to eat.” “I was just thinking how stupid I was to--to--to put you to all this inconvenience,” said he, hastily changing a rudeness into an apology. “Isn't it a real blessing for me to catch you?” cried O'Shea. “Imagine me shut up here by myself all day, no one to speak to, nothing to do, nothing to read but that old volume of the 'Wandering Jew,' that I begin to know by heart, or, worse again, that speech of mine on the Italian question, that whenever I 've nearly finished it the villains are sure to do something or other that destroys all my predictions and ruins my argument. What would have become of me to-day if you had n't dropped in?” Heathcote apparently did not feel called upon to answer this inquiry, but walked the room moodily, with his hands in his pockets. O'Shea gave a little faint sigh,--such a sigh as a weary pedestrian may give, as, turning the angle of the way, he sees seven miles of straight road before him, without bend or curve. It was now eleven o'clock, and five dreary hours were to be passed before dinner-time. Oh, my good reader, has it been amongst your life's experiences to have submitted to an ordeal of this kind,--to be caged up of a wet day with an unwilling guest, whom you are called on to amuse, but know not how to interest; to feel that you are bound to employ his thoughts, with the sad consciousness that in every pause of the conversation he is cursing his hard fate at being in your company; to know that you must deploy all the resources of your agreeability without even a chance of success, your very efforts to amuse constituting in themselves a boredom? It is as great a test of temper as of talent. Poor O'Shea, one cannot but pity you! To be sure, you are not without little aids to pass time, in the shape of cards, dice, and such-like. I am not quite sure that a travelling roulette-table is not somewhere amongst your effects. But of what use are they all _now?_ None would think of a lecture on anatomy to a man who had just suffered amputation.