A friend of mine about to revisit England had already engaged and paid for his passage from Rangoon, and was eagerly looking forward to his intended holiday, when almost at the last moment the poor fellow met with a shocking accident, whereby he was so unfortunate as to break both his legs. Visiting the patient at his house in the capacity of friend and not as physician, I found Mr ---- in a pitiable state of lamentation over the money spent on his passage home, which he regarded as practically lost; indeed, this particular matter seemed to oppress the invalid even more heavily than his other far more serious disaster. I reflected a while on the situation, and then deeming it a special opportunity for me to break from my thraldom of indecision and simultaneously to perform a real kindness to a brother in distress, I offered to relieve my sick friend of his ticket and to have his cabin transferred to myself. As a result of this suggestion I had at least the satisfaction of the injured man's warm gratitude, though I confess the homing instinct within me had grown so faint that I could summon up little or no enthusiasm at this new prospect of a speedy return to the land of my birth. One external ray of consolation however I was able to draw from this new arrangement, which was that the _Orissa_ of the Pheon Line, the boat selected by my friend, was timed to sail on the seventeenth day of the seventh month of the year. I have long held a secret veneration for the figure seven, and in this case the circumstance of the benign figures was combined with certain stellar conjunctions in the heavens on which I need not dwell here.