"My dear pupils," said I, "nothing would give me greater pleasure than to accede to your request, had I the means at hand. I fancy, in spite of the opinion of Dr. COFFYN BLOCKHEAD--a physician whose name I now hear for the first time--that I should have to consider the cost of Japanese caramel cannon-balls as an incident properly chargeable to pocket-money. Unfortunately you both exhausted that fund a fortnight since, by causing me to defray the expenses of a donkey ride, which mounted up in the aggregate to no less an amount than one shilling and eightpence halfpenny." "But surely, revered Sir," suggested GEORGIE, who has a bent for mathematics; "as our parents allow us half-a-sovereign a week each for the purposes of recreation, the sum you mention, although not inconsiderable, would scarcely have----" "Stop!" I cried, with some show of severity; "you really must not argue with me. I do not give you all your ten shillings a week, as I am reserving a portion of them to form the nucleus of an old-age pension to which you will become entitled on reaching eighty. The scheme is not without complications, so I reserve its description in detail until you are both old enough to understand it. Enough to say that I must repeat the present advance of a shilling is impossible." After this rebuff the lads were silent, and I regret to say not altogether contented. However, they soon, with the elasticity of youth, regained their spirits, and were as merry and as happy as ever. They absented themselves from my society more frequently than before, and when I saw them, seemed to be unusually prosperous, or to use an expressive colloquialism, "flush of money." GEORGIE continually appeared in gigantic collars that could have only been acquired at considerable expense, and JACKY as often carried a new walking-stick with a fairly costly handle. On one occasion they came home with a gift for me. It was a mug with a rough sketch of a mule or some less noble animal on the side balancing the handle, and was labelled "A Present from Drainville-on-Sea." I was gratified, but my satisfaction savoured of curiosity.