CHAPTER 2.X.
Within a fortnight I was surprised and a little irritated to receive from Armour the amount of my loan in full.

It was not in accordance with my preconceived idea of him that he should return it at all.

I had arranged in my own mind that he should be governed by the most honest impulses and the most approved intentions up to the point of departure, but that he should never find it quite convenient to pay, and that in order to effect his final shipment to other shores I should be compelled to lend him some more money.

In the far future, when he should be famous and I an obscure pauper on pension, my generous imagination permitted me to see the loan repaid; but not till then.

These are perhaps stereotyped and conventional lines to conceive him on, but I hardly think that anybody who has followed my little account to this point will think them unjustifiable.