to the man, walks into his own room.  There he finds a lighted lamp, brandy and soda on the table, and a packet of letters and newspapers.  He flung his hat on the sofa, and opened the window and door, so as to let in the cool breeze; then mixing for himself a glass of brandy and soda, he turned up the lamp, and prepared to read his letters.  The first he took up was from a lady.  “Always a she correspondent for me,” says Isaac Disraeli, “provided she does not cross.”  Brian’s correspondence did not cross, but notwithstanding this, after reading half a page of small talk and scandal, he flung the letter on the table with an impatient ejaculation.  The other letters were principally business ones, but the last one proved to be from Calton, and Fitzgerald opened it with a sensation of pleasure.  Calton was a capital letter-writer, and his epistles had done much to cheer Fitzgerald in the dismal period which succeeded his acquittal of Whyte’s murder, when he was in danger of getting into a morbid state of mind.  Brian, therefore, sipped his brandy and soda, and, lying back in his chair, prepared to enjoy himself.

“My dear Fitzgerald,” wrote Calton his peculiarly clear handwriting, which was such an exception to the usual crabbed hieroglyphics of his brethren of the bar, “while you are enjoying the cool breezes and delightful freshness of the country, here am I, with numerous other poor devils, cooped up in this hot and dusty city.  How I wish I were with you in the land of Goschen, by the rolling waters of the Murray, where everything is bright and green, and unsophisticated—­the two latter terms are almost identical—­instead of which my view is bounded by bricks and mortar, and the muddy waters of the Yarra have to do duty for your noble river.  Ah!  I too have lived in Arcadia, but I don’t now:  and even if some power gave me the choice to go back again, I am not sure that I would accept.  Arcadia, after all, is a lotus-eating Paradise of blissful ignorance, and I love the world with its pomps, vanities, and wickedness.  While you, therefore, oh Corydon—­don’t be afraid, I’m not going to quote Virgil—­are studying Nature’s book, I am deep in the musty leaves of Themis’ volume, but I dare say that the great mother teaches you much better things than her artificial daughter does me.  However, you remember that pithy proverb, ‘When one is in Rome, one must not speak ill of the Pope,’ so being in the legal profession, I must respect its muse.  I suppose when you saw that this letter came from a law office, you wondered what the deuce a lawyer was writing to you for, and my handwriting, no doubt suggested a writ—­pshaw!  I am wrong there, you are past the age of writs—­not that I hint that you are old; by no means—­you are just at that appreciative age when a man enjoys life most, when the fire of youth is tempered by the experience of age, and one knows how to enjoy to the utmost the good things of this world, videlicet—­love, wine, and friendship.  I am afraid I am growing