You know that I was always in the habit of "chaffing" him, taking a malicious pleasure in so doing, from the reason that he could not "chaff" me back again in return.

Well, you wouldn't have supposed that he bore me any great love or friendship, or felt kindly disposed towards me?
But, he did! About a week after I left the Obstructor General's Office, he came to me--I assure you, much to my astonishment--offering me his assistance.
"Bai-ey _Je-ove_! Lorton," said he, "sawy to he-ah you have left us, you know--ah.

Thawght you might be in a hole, you know--ah?
And, Bai- ey Je-ove! I say, old fellah,"-- he added, almost dropping his drawl in his earnestness,--"if I can help you in any way at all--ah, I should weally be vewy glad--ah!" The "us," whom I had "left--ah," referred, of course, to officialdom; but, it was kind, wasn't it?
There was old Shuffler, too.
"You ain't a goin' to Amerikey, sir, is you ?" he asked me just before my departure, meeting me in the street.
"Yes, I am, Shuffler," I replied, "and pretty soon, too!" "Lor! Mister Lorton; but I'm right loth to 'ear it! I've got a brother myself over in Amerikey; s'pose now, sir, I was to give you a letter to 'im?
It might, you know, some'ow or hother, be o' service, hay ?" "America is a large place, Shuffler," I answered.--"Whereabouts is he over there, eh ?" "Well, sir," said he, "I don't 'zackly knows were 'e his; but I dessay you'll come across him, sir.

I'll give you the letter, at hany rate;"-- and he did too, although I combated his resolution.

I need hardly add that I never met the said "brother in Amerikey" of his; so, that it was of no use to me, as I told him--although, it was a considerate action on Shuffler's part! Lady Dasher, also, did not forget me.
Believing that the last of the Mohicans still lived, and that the continent of the setting sun resembled Hounslow Heath in the old highwaymen's days, she presented to me--a blunderbuss! It was one with which her "poor dear papa" had been in the habit of frightening obstreperous White Boys, who might assail the sacred premises of Ballybrogue Castle--the ancestral seat of the Earls of Planetree in sportive Tipperary, as I believe I've told you before.