Without being at all handsome, there was a look of brightness, and boldness, and gallantry about him that arrested one's attention at first sight.

I think I should have taken him for a soldier, had I not already gathered it from the last words of their conversation.
"Who is your friend ?" I heard the new-comer whisper.
To which the other replied:--"Haven't the ghost of an idea." Presently he took out his pocket-book, and handing me a card, said:-- "We are under the mutual disadvantage of all chance acquaintances.

My name is Dalrymple--Oscar Dalrymple, late of the Enniskillen Dragoons.

My friend here is unknown to fame as Mr.Frank Sullivan; a young gentleman who has the good fortune to be younger partner in a firm of merchant princes, and the bad taste to dislike his occupation." How I blushed as I took Captain Dalrymple's card, and stammered out my own name in return! I had never possessed a card in my life, nor needed one, till this moment.

I rather think that Captain Dalrymple guessed these facts, for he shook hands with me at once, and put an end to my embarrassment by proposing that we should take a boat, and pull a mile or two up the river.