MAXWELL DREWITT.

CHAPTER I.

DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.

"CONFOUNDEDLY unlucky for you, Max."

"Truth, though you spoke it, my boy." Having uttered which civil reply, Mr. Maxwell Drewitt flung the fag-end of a cigar he had been gnawing out of the window, lit another, and commenced smoking like a chimney.

I wonder, reader, what opinion you, looking into that little sitting-room, would be inclined to form concerning the two men who tenanted it—what sort of character you would naturally attribute to each-what precise road through life you might think it most probable they would respectively follow.

VOL. I.

That tall one lolling on the sofa will, if you ask his name, answer, "Tim Ryan, at your service;" whilst the younger man, supposing you put the same question to him, would first inquire, "What the deuce business it was of yours?" and finally give in to the fact, that people did call him Maxwell Drewitt, nephew to Archibald Drewitt, Esquire, of Kincorth, near Duranmore, Connemara, Galway, Ireland.

It is the story of Maxwell Drewitt's life which I am about to try to tell, and I must ask you before we go further, to look attentively at him, and at the man whom for lack of a better word must be called his friend.

There they sit in the sunlight, in the parlour of Mr. Ryan's house, which is a long, low, two-storey, whitewashed cottage, standing a little back from the highroad leading to Duranmore. There they are for you to study at your leisure. Ryan fair; Drewitt dark; the former grey-eyed, reddish haired, wide-mouthed, and eight-and-twenty; the latter nearly six years younger, slightly made, and rather under than over the middle height, with dark eyes, dark complexion, and regular features.

Nothing very remarkable, you think, about

either of them in face, dress, circumstances, or expression.

Perhaps you may judge that Ryan is inclined. to mirth, whilst Drewitt affects gravity; that Max has more brains than Tim, and Tim a better temper than Max; but still, notwithstanding Ryan turns his eyes at times in a way which is not pleasant, and although when Drewitt speaks he has a peculiar and most ungraceful knack of not moving his lips like other people, you see nothing evil in either face.

Look again, look steadily, and be sure. Nothing evil? No, decidedly not; and this time you are certain of the accuracy of your observation.

All of which only proves that, spite of Lavater, faces are oftentimes great lies. They are the paper money of society, for which, on demand, there frequently proves to be no gold in the human coffer.

Maxwell Drewitt's face, at any rate, was a lie, for it told no unpleasant tales about his character. There was nothing disagreeable in its expression; there was no shadow of evil in his eyes, and yet the person that knew him best perhaps on earth

—his uncle—once declared,

"the man who trusted

Maxwell Drewitt twice was a fool."

He had been that fool, so it is fair to suppose him a competent judge in the matter.

Wherever Maxwell Drewitt had been born; under whatsoever circumstances he had been brought up; had he been the son of a bishop, or the heir of a duke, there can be no reasonable doubt but that he would have turned out just as bad a man, though, perhaps, a man differently bad.

With Timothy Ryan the case was different. It seemed as though Nature had hardly been able to decide what to make of him; that she had hesitated between an honest man and a rogue; and that while she remained irresolute, training and nurture took the matter into their own hands, and did the worst for him they could.

He himself was wont to declare he was as honest as he could afford to be; and if such were the case we can only suppose that the smallness of his capital restricted his expenditure of probity and fair dealing to almost a minimum sum per

annuni.

There ensued a long pause after the two remarks