“Phew!” whistled his patron, “no assets forthcoming, eh, that’s unfortunate, all the more so, because just at the present epoch my own financial arrangements are in a somewhat embarrassed condition--ar--banker’s account over-drawn--owing to their confounded free-trade, I expect, I can’t get my rents paid up,--in fact, to be frank with you, when this play business was first started, I, with incautious liberality, volunteered to make one of a jovial crew of fifth-formers, who intend to follow up the theatrical entertainments with a sort of extempore _déjeuné à la fourchette_ of oysters and porter. Well, sir, when I came to examine into the state of my funds, I, after much deep and intricate calculation, arrived at the following result viz., that I had contracted liabilities to the amount of one pound five, while to meet them I possessed the exact sum of two shillings and threepence halfpenny--the halfpenny being scarcely an efficient coin of the realm, by reason of my having that morning punched a large hole in its centre, in pursuance of a mechanical experiment which failed. Under these circumstances I immediately wrote to the governor, saying that several unusually distressing cases of charity having come under my notice since I had last received his blessing and a ten-pound note, the blessing alone remained; adding that another case more urgent than any of the former now appealing to my sympathies, I trusted he would not object to replace the money without unnecessary delay. They say it is a wise child that knows its own father; certainly in this particular instance I seem to have formed a strangely mistaken estimate of the manners and customs of mine, for yesterday morning I received from him the following heartless reply:-- “‘Dear Wilfred Jacob,--As I happen to know your charity is of the kind which begins and ends at home, and as two pounds a week is rather more than I wish you to spend on lollipops, I strongly recommend total abstinence from such delicacies for the next fortnight, at the expiration of which period you may look for a five-pound note (the last you will receive before the holidays), from, “‘Your affectionate father.’”