all-licensing carnival of the Derby was the only exception to the rule.

66

Then, as you never bet—except at the Derby -I will not tempt you to do so; but I wish to see the thing tried, and therefore I will tell you what I'll do. If you will give me your word of honor to speak the truth, and nothing but the truth, for one whole day, and if you keep your word by doing so for one day, without forfeiting all the advantages I have named, and if you persevere in doing so for one week without getting put into a lunatic asylum, why, at the end of the given time, I will pay you down five hundred pounds damages for having wronged you, although I am not rich."

“But I don't want you to give me five hundred pounds."

“Or I'll take a thrashing from you for the same cause, although I am the biggest."

"But I don't want to give you a thrashing." “Oh, well; if you'll neither give nor take, I will bribe you in another way; I will promise never to let my eyes wander towards pretty Lizzy Bell's pew, although that is my principal pleasure in going to church.”

"I take you up at that!"

"It is a bargain, then?"

"Yes; but mind, by speaking the truth for a day—as, indeed, I always do—I do not mean to say that I am going about voluntarily to insult everybody by telling them of their little faults, or peccadilloes, or misfortunes."

"Certainly not. You are to answer truly only such questions as are put to you, and such observations as are addressed to you in you. daily routine of business or social intercourse with the little world around you."

"That is simple enough. But stop-you are not to go round among our acquaintance, putting them up to asking me awkward questions which it would be painful to answer?"

"On my honor, no! All shall be fair, for I wish the experiment fairly tested. I shall not speak of the subject directly or indirectly to a single soul during the proscribed day nor must you, should you be hard up, spoil all by saying to any one Forgive me, for I have taken the

pledge to speak the truth for a day.'

"Certainly not. I should never under any circumstances make an apology for speaking the

truth."

"Then we understand each other?"

"Perfectly.

gin?"

When does my probation be

"At what time do you rise?"

"At seven."

"Then from seven o'clock to-morrow, being

Monday, April 1st, you must begin to speak the truth, and if you persevere until Monday, April 8th, you will be comfortably housed in Bedlam, undergoing the refreshing discipline of the strait-jacket and the shower-bath," said Blewitt.

Morris laughed incredulously; and the friends having reached the end of their argument and the corner of the street at the same moment, parted, and went each his own way.

Blewitt and Morris having been schoolmates, neighbors, and friends from boyhood, they were both of the same age-hopeful twenty-five. But Blewitt, the junior partner in a stock-broker's firm, was the tallest, handsomest, and richest man of the two, and consequently had seen more of life than his simpler friend.

The origin of the argument with which the chapter opens was this:-The young men had been attending evening service in a Dissenting chapel, in which a highly celebrated popular

preacher had held forth upon the fearful text that “Liars shall have their portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone for ever and ever."

In his discourse he spared neither rich nor poor, age nor sex, man, woman, nor child, in his fierce denunciation of the daily, universal, crying sin of falsehood. In his notoriously blunt manner and pure Saxon, he told the lords and ladies present, whom curiosity had drawn to hear this modern John Knox, that they lied to each other, to their friends, and to the world; that they lied in their chambers, in their drawing-rooms, and, Heaven help them, even in the church of God! He told the tradesmen and tradeswoman that their business was founded upon falsehood; the professional men that they lived by lying; and the little children that they told falsehoods by signs long before they were able to do so by speech.

He threatened them all with the warmest corner of that warm lake. Near the close of his sermon, the storm of denunciation dissolved in a shower of compassion, and with tears in his eyes, he implored his hearers "to reform” this sinful habit "altogether," to make a beginning; to try, by the grace of God, to speak the truth, if only

for a week-for a day-and see how much better it would be!

The congregation had left the church, making various comments upon this extraordinary sermon.

CHAPTER II.

THE TEST.

"The truth shall make you free."

JOSEPH MORRIS lived in Little Britain, with his bachelor uncle and maiden aunt, Mr. John and Mrs. Mary Morris, of whom it need only be said, that they were ordinary specimens of elderly man and womanhood in their own class; fat as most persons are between fifty and sixty; goodhumored when nobody crossed them; kind to their nephew when he pleased them, and otherwise when he did otherwise. They had retired before Joseph returned from chapel that Sunday night, and so he went immediately up to his chamber in the third-floor front, and to bed, and to sleep, without ever dreaming of the troubles that might be in store for him.

He arose the next morning at his usual hour,