“Can’t help it, my dear fellow! Haven’t got ready cash enough to pay for these segars; to say nothing of the wine, and so forth, that a fellow must have.” “But there is your uncle. He refuses you nothing.” “Hark! that is his step; speak of—— Ah! my dear uncle, I am so glad to see you. Called at the house this morning, but you were out.” The person who entered to receive this greeting, was the old man whom we have seen at his dinner in that solitary house, and who afterward gave so much happiness to the soldier’s orphans in the fair. He entered the room with a grim smile on his face, and stood near the door a moment with his brows bent, and his sharp eyes turned upon the sumptuous disarray of that dinner-table. The smile on his thin lip turned to a sneer as he took in the picture. Tiny birds, with their bones half picked; fragments of a delicious dessert; and all that rich coloring of half-drained wine-glasses, gave an idea of satiety at a glance, which brought out the disagreeable points in the old man’s character, and brought the color to Gould’s face. “Take this seat, uncle,” cried Gould, starting up, eager to divert the old man’s attention from the debris of his little feast. “You will find it comfortable. Let me take charge of your hat and cane.” The old man looked at his nephew with a sharp gleam of the eye, and drawing a chair to the table, laid his hat and cane on the carpet. Then he took up the glasses, one after another, and tasted their contents with great deliberation, occasionally pouring a little from the bottles and decanters, while he muttered to himself, “Champagne, Burgundy, sherry, claret, old Madeira, and the Lord knows what, with roasted canary birds, and peaches of ice by way of substantials. Wholesome eating for a young man.” Gould pushed his chair away, and came to the table; all his indolent composure gone, and with the hot-red of a school-boy on his handsome cheeks. “Shall I ring, uncle? Will you try one of these birds served hot? They are very fine.” “No; thank you, nephew; they are too expensive eating for an old fellow like me.” “Too expensive for you, uncle—the idea amuses me.” “Remember, young gentleman,” said the old millionaire, with grim pleasantry, “that I have no rich uncle to depend on. A moderate glass of port, or claret, now and then, is as much as I can afford. But, then, it is so different with you.” Gould bent over the old man’s chair, and whispered with deprecating humility, “Uncle, don’t be so hard upon me before my friend.” “Your friend!” repeated the old man, aloud. “So this is one of your friends. Let me take a good look at him.” With cruel deliberation he took out a pair of gold spectacles, fitted them to his eyes, and searched Ward from head to foot with one of his sharp, prolonged glances. The young fellow colored, winced, and at last turned fairly around in his chair, muttering, “Hang the old fellow! his eyes seize on me like a pair of pincers.”