My friend mused for a moment: “I have no particular business at L—,” said he; “I was merely going thither to pass a day or two, till an affair, in which I am deeply interested, at C— shall come off. I think I shall stay with you for four-and-twenty hours at least; I have been rather melancholy of late, and cannot afford to part with a friend like you at the present moment; it is an unexpected piece of good fortune to have met you; and I have not been very fortunate of late,” he added, sighing. “Well,” said I, “I am glad to see you once more, whether fortunate or not; where is your baggage?” “Yon trunk is mine,” said Francis, pointing to a trunk of black Russian leather upon the coach. “We will soon have it down,” said I; and at a word which I gave to one of the hangers-on of the inn, the trunk was taken from the top of the coach. “Now,” said I to Francis Ardry, “follow me, I am a person of some authority in this house;” thereupon I led Francis Ardry into the house, and a word which I said to a waiter forthwith installed Francis Ardry in a comfortable private sitting-room, and his trunk in the very best sleeping-room of our extensive establishment. It was now about one o’clock: Francis Ardry ordered dinner for two, to be ready at four, and a pint of sherry to be brought forthwith, which I requested my friend the waiter might be the very best, and which in effect turned out as I requested; we sat down, and when we had drunk to each other’s health, Frank requested me to make known to him how I had contrived to free myself from my embarrassments in London, what I had been about since I quitted that city, and the present posture of my affairs. I related to Francis Ardry how I had composed the _Life of Joseph Sell_, and how the sale of it to the bookseller had enabled me to quit London with money in my pocket, which had supported me during a long course of ramble in the country, into the particulars of which I, however, did not enter with any considerable degree of fulness. I summed up my account by saying that “I was at present a kind of overlooker in the stables of the inn, had still some pounds in my purse, and, moreover, a capital horse in the stall.” “No very agreeable posture of affairs,” said Francis Ardry, looking rather seriously at me.