Jack’s talk was all about the regiment and the fine fellows in it: how he had ridden a steeplechase with Captain Boldero, and licked him at the last hedge; and how he had very nearly fought a duel with Sir George Grig, about dancing with Lady Mary Slamken at a ball. ‘I soon made the baronet know what it was to deal with a man of the N--th,’ said Jack. ‘Dammee, sir, when I lugged out my barkers, and talked of fighting across the mess-room table, Grig turned as pale as a sheet, or as----’ ‘Or as you used to do, Attwood, when Swishtail hauled you up,’ piped out little Hicks, the foundation-boy. It was beneath Jack’s dignity to thrash anybody now but a grown-up baronet; so he let off little Hicks, and passed over the general titter which was raised at his expense. However, he entertained us with his histories about lords and ladies, and So-and-so ‘of ours,’ until we thought him one of the greatest men in his Majesty’s service, and until the school-bell rung; when, with a heavy heart, we got our books together, and marched in to be whacked by old Swishtail. I promise you he revenged himself on us for Jack’s contempt of him. I got that day at least twenty cuts to my share, which ought to have belonged to Cornet Attwood, of the N--th Dragoons. When we came to think more coolly over our quondam school-fellow’s swaggering talk and manners, we were not quite so impressed by his merits as at his first appearance among us. We recollected how he used, in former times, to tell us great stories, which were so monstrously improbable that the smallest boy in the school would scout them; how often we caught him tripping in facts, and how unblushingly he admitted his little errors in the score of veracity. He and I, though never great friends, had been close companions: I was Jack’s form-fellow (we fought with amazing emulation for the _last_ place in the class); but still I was rather hurt at the coolness of my old comrade, who had forgotten all our former intimacy, in his steeplechases with Captain Boldero and his duel with Sir George Grig. Nothing more was heard of Attwood for some years; a tailor one day came down to C----, who had made clothes for Jack in his school-days, and furnished him with regimentals: he produced a long bill for one hundred and twenty pounds and upwards, and asked where news might be had of his customer. Jack was in India, with his regiment, shooting tigers and jackals, no doubt. Occasionally, from that distant country, some magnificent rumour would reach us of his proceedings. Once I heard that he had been called to a court-martial for unbecoming conduct; another time, that he kept twenty horses, and won the gold plate at the Calcutta races. Presently, however, as the recollections of the fifth form wore away, Jack’s image disappeared likewise, and I ceased to ask or to think about my college chum.