His companion was a middle-sized, middle-aged man, with a mass of bushy curly black hair, a round bullet head, wide-set eyes, and a short nose, of the leonine pattern; his mouth, large and thick-lipped, had all that mobility that denotes talker and eater: for Mr. Cutbill, civil engineer and architect, was both garrulous and gourmand, and lived in the happy enjoyment of being thought excellent company, and a first-rate judge of a dinner. He was musical too; he played the violoncello with some skill, and was an associate of various philharmonics, who performed fantasias and fugues to dreary old ladies and snuffy old bachelors, who found the amusement an economy that exacted nothing more costly than a little patience. Among these Tom Cutbill was a man of wit and man of the world. His career brought him from time to time into contact with persons of high station and rank, and these he ventilated amongst his set in the most easy manner, familiarly talking of Beaufort, and Argyle, and Cleveland, as though they were household words. It was reported that he had some cleverness as an actor; and he might have had, for the man treated life as a drama, and was eternally representing something,--some imaginary character,--till any little fragment of reality in him had been entirely rubbed out by the process, and he remained the mere personation of whatever the society he chanced to be in wanted or demanded of him. He had been recommended to Lord Culduff's notice by his Lordship's London agent, who had said, “He knows the scientific part of his business as well as the great swells of his profession, and he knows the world a precious sight better than they do. _They_ could tell you if you have coal, but he will do that and more; _he_ will tell you what to do with it.” It was on the advice thus given Lord Culduff had secured his services, and taken him over to Ireland. It was a bitter pill to swallow, for this old broken-down man of fashion, self-indulgent, fastidious, and refined, to travel in such company; but his affairs were in a sad state, from years of extravagance and high living, and it was only by the supposed discovery of these mines on this unprofitable part of his estate that his creditors consented to defer that settlement which might sweep away almost all that remained to him. Cutbill was told, too,--“His Lordship is rather hard up just now, and cannot be liberal as he could wish; but he is a charming person to know, and will treat you like a brother.” The one chink in this shrewd fellow's armor was his snobbery. It was told of him once, in a very dangerous illness, when all means of inducing perspiration had failed, that some one said, “Try him with a lord; it never failed with Tom yet.” If an untitled squire had proposed to take Mr. Cutbill over special to Ireland for a hundred pound note and his expenses, he would have indignantly refused the offer, and assisted the proposer besides to some unpalatable