A CONFIDENTIAL AGENT:

BY JAMES PAYN,

AUTHOR OF "By Proxy," "Under One Roof," "Walter's Word," "High Spirits," Etc.

CHAPTER XLV

THE LAWYER AND THE MAJOR.

IT was before the days of twin-ships and of the Calais-Don iits that Mr Frank Bat low took his departure to Paris by way of Folkestone: but oven if thoso admir able seientiltc inventions had been in exis tence it is doubtful whether they would have much availed him against the effects of a sea voyage. His nature was averse to range, and he had never tempted tho waves before except in the floating bridge between Gosport and Portsmouth: aud wo all know what the ocean f.oos with a new-conicr. It receives him union as a midshipman 8 mess in old times was wont to receive one from liia mother's apron-strings. When Mr Barlow set foot on ISoulogne shores he was iv that pitiable stale that ho almost made up his mind to take out loiters of natura lisation and become a Frenchman lor ever more, rather than recross (lie .Straits. Nor at the buffet of the railway station did ho tiuil anything better adapted to recover the lone of Ills stomach tliim ititalia cakes, small -ticks of chocolate, nnd very largo cruet bottles of vinegar and oil, soup, indeed, lit! tried to procure; but as it consisted — no. it bad no consistence, as it was obviously composed of hot water with melted butter in it—it benefited him vory little.

Year, afterwards, when speaking of his uniiitto cxpcricnco (for ho nevor left his native land again), Mr Barlow was wont to remark that, though iv foreign travels ho often saw in the tlc.li what had apparently been boiled for soup, he nevor behold those soups which those rags at some remote period must have made, On that long, un interesting routo to Pain if also struck hint boy,- very few English folks could ever bo got to take it, and how they would inveigh against its lediiuii if it only happened to be in Etiglaml. At one station be was so for tunate as to procure some oranges, the only food familiar to him, nnd 'there lore in which ha had any confidence, at half a franc apiece. But the pangs of hunger compelled him subsequently to procure some little cakes, which turned to bo made out of the same substance t hat is used at home for giving to dead rabbits tho powerful aroma that fits them to he a 'drag' for a pack of hounds. Suffering, then, from a distressing combi nation of aniseed and inn I dcvier, nnd we may add mal dv pays, Mr Frank Barlow arrived in Paris and took up his quartcrsat the Louvre. He was not sorry to find that Major Lovell was for the present elsewhere, .since an opportunity for recruiting himself V.-as thus afforded him ; and having taken advantage of it, and nddrc'sed a short note to the Major requesting an interview upon a .subject of importance, he awaited events with his usual confidence and serenity of

mind.

The same evening he received a few lines from the Major expressing his willingness to sec him, ami was at once ushered to his apartment on the third floor. It was scarcely possible for two men of tho same race, ago, and position in life, to have fow tliingsin common with one another than Frederick Lovcll and Flunk Barlow. Willi the latter we are already acquainted ; an uncompromisingly honest fellow-, devoted to his profession and his mistress ; strictly moral, and genuinely though unenthusias tically religions; a very favourable sped ini'i), on the whole, of the middle class to which he belonged. .Socially the two men stood on the same level, but the surround ings of tho Major had from the first boon of a iiioi o aristocratic kind ; his patents died early, and he had been placed by his undo aad guardian at. a public school,and from it jvt once entered the army. He had had there fore very little education, while he had been left to himself altogether as to moral train ing. His father had been a man of fashion, and used to be known in circles of which Barlow pern had known no thins, as "Cater pillar Lovcll." The sobriquet arose from bis possession of an insect of that description which he was wont in the days of the Re gency, when such eccentric bets were com mon, to hack for a great deal of money to escape from a soup-plate, in the centre of which it had been placed,more quickly than any other caterpillar. The pretty creature wan a fortune to him, until someone dis covered that its celerity arose from the fact of the plate being a warmed one ; when that source of revenue ceased.

lie left little behind him ; but Frederick bad great expectations from his uncle, a bachelor and a man of science. His weak ness was astronomy, and ho possessed the largest telescope and the tallest observatory in bis native county. When important transits wcic expected, his lawn used to be laid out with pegs and ropes in illus tration of the phenomena about to taKe place in the celestial regions. On one occasion, when Master Frederick was at home for the holidays, be disturbed these scientific arrangements to make room for a .game at bowls.and in replacing them mixed up Jupiter and Venus in a very compromis ing and improper manner. Tin's interference With the stars and their courses cost him bia inheritance. 'J ho greater part of his uncles wealth wont to endow scientific research, while he himself remained a poor man with expensive tastes, and little be yond his good looks and captivating man ners wherewith to make his way in the world. Nevertheless, he bad hover ridden in an omnibus, nor stayed at an hotel, oven in Paris, without indulging himself in a private fitting-room. lie was ill his own apartment now, lying on the sofa, with a cigarette in his mouth and La Vie Parisi enne in bia hand, when his visitor was announced, lie rose at once, with an inclination of Ins head that contrasted reiy favourably with the other's stilt and embar rassed bow, and motioned him to a seat.

" Mr Barlow, 1 believe V

" Yes ; I have ventured to call upon you. on a matter of great importance, and about which, as I understand through Sir Charles Pargiter, you can give me information. It is with respect to Matthew Helston." A ilush came Aver the Major's somewhat delicate and pallid features,'" Do you come on Sir Charles's behalf?" he inquired. "No, sir : I do not. I .am a lawyer." lie hesitut-.d for .an instant.

The Major bowed with even greater Courtesy than before, but also with more coldnci..^. His experience of gentleman of the long robo (mid ho did not understand the nice distinctions of the legal profession) bad been very unfavourable. "My object in coming to Paris, Major Lovell, is in the first place to discover the whereabouts of Mr Helston; and in the next place to recover the missing dia monds."

" You are acting on instructions from Mr Signet, I suppose ?" returned the other. " However,that makes little matter.as from a note I got from Sir Charles this evening .ems their interests arc' now identical.

Well, I'm sorry I can't assist you, Mr Bar low. Ido not know where Mr Helston is, and need not say that I am in equal ignorance as to the diamonds." "And yet I understood that you had scon Mr liclston.i'

"No sir, I have not; nnd, to speak fatnkly, if I had I should not feel justified in giving you any information respecting him. You will say, perhaps, that it is the duty of every mail to further the ends of justice. Ido not dispute it; but I also claim to exercise the right of private judg ment. 1 ciuniot oblige you in this matter." "You speak of private judgment," said Mr Barlow; "may I inquire if it is not some private or personal feeling which is actuating you in thus refusing to assist me . I am aware—though, as I believe, you are strangers to each other—that years ago cir cumstances brought you into a certain con nection with Mntihc*' tielston." " They may or may not have done so.sir," nn.wcrcd. the other haughtily, "but at all events they afford no subject of discussion with a stranger." "..Still, though I have read that when one man has wronged another it is a temptation to him to do him further hurt, 1 can scarcely imagine any person of honourable feeling who, fooling his defeated rival under foot, would designedly assist in crushing him. I am here, 1 confess, as Matthew llolstou's friend. I wish to do the best 1 can—which, alas I can be but very little—for him. If I could see him, I could, perhaps, persuade him to make some amends for I lie offence he has committed. At all events, 1 should know that he was alive, whereas at present his unhappy wife knows not whether he is above ground or not. and suffers extreme anxiety and distress of mind." " Will you swear to me," interrupted the Major suddenly, "that this and no other is the reason of'your making these inquir ies? That you have no motive, such as that offer of reward offered by Lady I'arbi ter, or as instructions from her, or from Mr Signet, and no covert intention of doing the man an ill turn ?"

".So hdp mc Heaven, I havo not, Major Lovell," returned Mr Barlow carnesily. " When I tell you that my dourest hope, uothwith-itnnding all that has happened, is to ally myself to one dear and near to him, you limy imagine 1 am the last person to do linn an injury, or—whatever may be my respect for the laws of my.country—to bring him to justice." '• In that case, Mr Barlow," returned the Major gravely, "what information 1 am possessed of is very much at your service ; but it will, I fear, bo of small advantage to you. You, however, will he the best judge of that, and therefore I will simply set be fore you nil I know."

"Would you kitidly lot mc have pen and irk?" said tho lawyer. Whereupon Mr Barlow waiaceommodatrd with thoso familiar articles, though in a shape under which he scarcely re cognised them ; the ink-bottle being an egg in a bird's nest, and the quill-pen having bends on its feathers aud a tassel on its tip. "1 have seen Mr Helston but twice in my ltfo, and each time only for a few second'," began tbe Major; " but, from citcumstancoa to which ynu have alluded, the tidings that he had disappeared with Lady Pargitcr's jewel's moused a greater interest in my mind than it otherwise would havo done. I should say, by-tlie-by, that 1 was present on one occanon wben Lady Pargiter, as it seemed to me, treated him-with great indienity, and I pitied the man ; nnd though afterwards be expressed ploasuro at a certain misfortune that befel me—it was the loss of a bet—l owed him no grudge on that account, for I felt that ho had good cause to ho hostile to me. This bet 1 had made with one Captain Langton ; and since it was in his presence that Helston in a manner insulted mo " "One moment.Major Lovcll,"interrupted Mi- Barlow. "How was it that Helston mot you in Captain Langton'a company ? " That ho should have done so struck the lawyer as remarkable, and ovcnMWiggcstcd that ile'ston might have had acquaintances, suoh as his friends and family had no idea of, all along. "Well, the whole thing happened in a moment. Wo stopped him iv liis cab one ni.ht, thinking him a perfect stranger, in order to decide a, bet—or rather Langton did." "Bless my soul !" murmured Mr Bar low, to whom this proceeding appeared outrageous. "And that was why," continued the Major, " though I should have been silent upon the subject to people iv general, I spoke lo Langton about Helston after the robbery." "Then even at that early date, Major Lovcll, you took it for granted he was guilty." " Well it looked uncommonly fishy, of course, from the very first. I certainly never expressed any such opinion, noi indeed did Langton at tbo time. On the contrary, he suggested that Pargiter, being very hard tip, might have laid hands on the diamonds himself."

" Not in earnest, surely ? " said Mr Bar low, very much scandalised, " Well, half in joke, half in earnest Langton is a very queer fellow. I spoke to him, as I now remember, about the robbery because he at one time expressed a wish to see the diamonds, and knowing I was a friend of Pargitcr's, had asked me to pro cure him the opportunity."

" And did yon? ' " No; Langton is not the sort of man I should wish to introduce to a friend's house. I put him off with some excuse or another." Discursive and apparently aimless as was the Major's statement, there was one portion of it which struck the lawyer's attention in a manner hardly explicable even to his own mind.

"You have hinted," he interposed, "that this Captain Langton is not a special friend of yours; may I ask you what you know about him ?"

"Well, it is very little; he is merely a cardroom acquaintance. He is an unpopu lar man amongst us; but then he is generally a winner,whichmay partly account tor that. However, some men have a great objection to him—Sir Charles Pargiter has, for one. I remember his saying at the club that ho believed he must have committed a murder, and some one replying, 'So he has, but it was only at sea'—which for all I know may have been the case." " Did you know of the robbery in Moor Street at that time _ " inquired Mr Barlow.

" Well, no : how could we? In fact, it must have been just then in course of commission."

"Did you speak to Captain Langton about it the next day ?"

"No; lie left England almost immedia tely, to spend his Christmas in Paris. Our conversation about Helston took place some time afterwards—just after Lady Pargiter had advertised the reward. He said it was offered too late, for that Helston bad been in Paris for a week, and had no doubt by that time disposed of the jewels. He even named a diamond merchant in the Rue do Bris to whom he bad offered them."

"But how came Captain Langton to know that ? "

" I have no idea. Langton, however, is a man ready to do a stroke of business in anything; and in diamonds as likely as anything else ; so that he may have visited the merchant on his own account, As I have said, he is a queer fish,"

" And yet it was upon his testimony, it Focms, that you wrote to Lady Pargiter to say that Helston was in Paris." "No, not entirely," said the Major reddening and hesitating. "It is true I bad not seen the man myself, but I had peen one the fact of whose presence here —taking into consideration Langton's evidence—convinced me that it was so." " I do not .quite follow you, Major Lovcll. Pray forgive me.if I seem to press you on what may be delicate ground ; but the importance of this matter may be veiy great." '■" Well, the fact is I recognised a lady in the street as one to whom Mr Helston when a very young man was deeply attached, and " You mean Phoibe Mayson 1"

" Yes ; Langton told me (I don't know on whose authority) that Helston had renewed his addresses to her ; that they had, in fact, come to Paris in company. The whole story seemed so probable that I felt it my duty since Mr Signet was questioning his claim to compensation, to let Pargiter know how matters stood; but 1 did it, I do assure you,against the grain."

"I am sure of that," said Mr Barlow earnestly. " You do not not happen to know, of course, where the young person you spoke of is refilling ?"

"Most certainly not," returned the Major, in a tone which mipht have been mistaken (by a stranger to him) for one of virtuous indignation, but which was in reality caused by wounded pride. " But you can give mc the name of the jeweller."

"It is cither Monteur ot Montague— Latigt-n's French is very fishy—but the Rue dc liris is a -.short street, and you will have no difficulty in finding him."' " I am gtcatly obliged to you, Major Lovell," said Mr Barlow, rising. "You havo behaved most frankly." "Not at all, not at all," put in the Major. "You have my host wishes, not only for the recovery of the diamonds, but for helping your friend out of his scrap? — ' removing him from the jiiristiction of the Court'is, 1 believe, the technical expres sion. Coed evening." Puder any other circumstances Mr Bar low would have very warmly protested against a phrase which certaiuly imputed to him very unprofessional intentions, but he was too well satisfied with his companion's behaviour to find fault witii him, and also too full of a certain thought which his nar ration had .suggested to him, to take much note of minor mut'ers. What had obtained possession of his mind was evidently a sub ject insignificant enough in the present connection in the Major's eyes, but which in those of the lawyer was growing every moment, though in a vague and dusky fashion, like the genius of the bottle in the Arabian talcs; only the shape it took was by no means that of a genius, but of one Captain Langton—a man wbo had been anxious to get a sight of the Pargiter dia monds, and who, though tolerated, as it seemed, in certain circles ot society, was credited with a murder, though only at sea. It -was incredible, notwithstanding all that had happened to disturb Mr Barlow's views respecting Helston's character, tbat such a man as this could have been a friend and still more a confidant of Matthew's. How came it, then, that he should profess to know, not only that he was in Paris, but that lie was in possession of the diamonds, and endeavouring to dispose of them ? This weighty question in connection with certain possibilities contingent on it, and in combination, it may be added, with the eccentric and unaccustomed movements of the cider-down quilt with which his bed was provided, rendered Mr Barlow's first night in Paris a very disturbed one,

CHAPTER XLVI.

MAKING INQUIRIES.

It is_ often stated by those who arc good linguists, I scarcely know whether for the comfort of tliosc to whom not only " the French of Paris is unknown," but even " that of Stratford attc Bowc," or for their disappointment and distraction, that " everybody in Paris speaks English." Or, if they shrink from telling a falsehood of that enormous magnitude, they will never theless confidently assert that there are plenty of people who understand English in the queen of cities, "wherever you go," and that in the hotels and shops, nt a'l events, " you will be quite at home." They do not hint that the conversation of the poor islander during his stay on the Continent must necessarily be of the parrot and phrasebook kind, and that the best chalice he will have of that interchange of ideas which is to "open his mind " so much will be with a waiter. Even with the waiters, however, poor Mr Batlow did not find himself on a very intelligible footing, while his intercourse with the shopkeepers was like the first rehearsal of a pantomime, in which he had always to sustain the part of pantaloon. The Rue de Bris he dis covered, like a navigator, by means of a chart; but M. Montour migjit have be'en M. Tonson, to difficult he found it to ascer tain that gentleman's place of residence. He looked, of course, for a shop, never imagining that the place he sought was an hotel with a court-yard resembling a small edition of the Admiralty, in Whitehall; and when at last he bad made his way thither, and found the proprietor —an ancient personage in a black velvet skull cap, full of antics, and hung on springs, in a parlour at the back of liis premises—he was not certain in his own mind whether he stood in the presence of a diamond mer chant or a monkey. Upon the whole, in deed, since M. Montour received him with native politeness-that is, with a profusion of shrugs and jabber— he rather leant to the latter view. As soon, however, as Mr Barlow made his new acquaintance under stand that ho was an Englishman, ' Ha, ha ; ma lille shall come,' cried monsieur in an ccstacy; and on pulling the bell and giving some orders to the servant, a young lady— indeed, a mere schoolgirl—but of prepos sessing appearance, presented herself to Mr Barlow's astonished view. It appeared M. Montour had a daughter who had resided in the Isle of Eogs and could speak its tongue like a native : and this was she.

After a few words of explanation from the old man, "You have beczness with my papa, monsieur ?" said she in a sprightly tone, " Vain-good ; you will tell it lo me, and I will toll it to him. Fire away." Mr Barlow stared, as well he might; for the young lady, though obviously enjoying the task that had been set her, looked per fectly serious.

" I have ventured to call upon Mousciur Montour," he said, " in respect to a matter which can hardly bo called a business one, but to which I hope, he will have the cour tesy to'give bis attention. A gentleman in whom I am deeply interested has suddenly disappeared from'his wife and family, to their gicnt distress and perplexity, and I am come to Paris to find him. I have reason to believe that he called upon your father some days ago with respect to.the purchase of some diamond^."

This statement having hecn translated to the merchant, he replied, through his daugh ter, t^at a countryman of Mr Barlow's had, indeed, called upon him in the preceding week, but upon a private matter. "JNot if he knows it," said the young lady (hut with a sweetly apologetic air, as though she had said, " Deeply as he regrets to rfcuse you"), "will my father give you

any information about the matter unlcss'you show some auihority for demanding it." At this Mr Barlow was a good deal cast cast down, and his face showed it. " Are you a relative of his who has quar relled with him foi cutting his stick ?" in quired the young lady tenderly. She had _licek-br_es so high that one really could not look over them to the extent of calling her a beauty, but she had soft eyes and a gentle voice ; and if it were not for her- in explicable indulgence in slang Mr Barlow would have pronounced her essentially feminine. When French people spoke French they puzzled him, but the way_ in which this' young woman spoke English amazed and alarmed him beyond cxpres-

sion. " I am not a relative of the person

■ —.15 Ut-^L-11. " Name of Butt," she put in with quick ness but great gravity. " Just so ; but it is possible—l hope pro bable—that I may become connected with him."

"Ah " (lighting up with sudden vivacity), "you are going to marry his sister. Have you popped?" 'i his was woise than all'; it seemed a positive sacrilege to Mr Barlow io have his lost love spoken of in this flippant fashion ; but then it was to iiocessary to secure this young person's sympathy. "Yes, mademoiselle, I have—popped." Whereupon mademoiselle clapped her hands delightedly, and turning to her fath- r, seemed to appeal to him in Mr Barlow's favour. That gentleman, of course, did not utidc'Stand what she said, but he after wards compared her winning manner and carrcsses and flow of words to a rain of .sugarplums, "My father says you must describe your brother-in-law that is to be," said she, " before he can furnish you with bis ad dress. My papa is a man of business, you sec ; moreover," she added in an apologetic tone, "there is no green in his eye. He is a young man frnm the country, but you cannot get over him." "Indeed, my dear young lady, I do not want to get over him, protested Mr Bar low. "My brother-in-law is a man about my own height; rather more stoutly built." "Eh? Ah, I understand; and I, too, have seen him. Yes, he is stumpy, podgy ?" " He ha 3 short brown hair, and his face is grave."

" Yes; that is right—a heavy spirit; or, as you say in England, down upon his luck. He looks if he had lost sixpence."

" He has lost more than that," fighed Mr Barlow. "If M. Monteur has still a doubt as to my personal knowledge of this gentle man, I think I can state the nature of the business about which became. He wished to dispose of certain diamonds—likethese." And he produced the drawing of the Par giter parure which be had procured from Mr Brail.

The merchant took the drawing and examined it with cuiiosity. "Yes, that is right,' he said in French; "we might have done business together, this geotleman and I, only I required certain explanations which were retused me. From what you tell me, my darling, it is probable that they were his wife's jewels, to which he had no claim. She must have been very wealthy. Well—well, I have sufficiently respected his desire for secrecy. Our visi tor,-it seems, has aright to what he asks. The gentleman's address was Hotel de la Fontaine, Kue dv Simon." " You ate most kind, mademoiselle," said Barlow gratefully, when tliis news had been translated to him. "You have made easy what would otherwise have been very difficult."

"Do not mention it, sir," returned she gracefully. '' And do keep up your pecker. Look less like a duck in a thunderstorm, aud never say die while there's a shot in the locker."

"Your advice is admirable, mademoi selle," said Mr. Barlow ; then added, with an irrepressible curiosity, "but may I ask where you learnt your English?" "Yes, yes; that is what everyone says," cried she exultingly. '' ' Where did I learn my English V 1 speak like a native; is it not so?"

■' Indeed you do, mademoiselle ; more so, indeed, than most natives."

" Ah, that is thanks to my two cousins at Rugby College. They taught me the idioms all in the Christmas holidays, at the house of their mother. Yes, I speak vaar good English. Eight you aie. I believe you, my boy." What could Mr. Barlow do ? She was so perfectly unconscious of her linguistic de fects, and so blissful in her possession of them, that it would have been a cruelty to undecieve her; he could only take her hand —having received the politest of bows from M. Monteur—and wish her good-bye, which be did most cordially.

" Ta, ta," she said with all the ingenuous delight of a child who is exhibiting its ac complishments ; " ta, ta, and take care of yourself. Permit me to jerk the tinkler, and the slavey will show you the way out."

Mr. Barlow was deficient in humour, and serious thoughts were oppressing him, yet be could not avoid being amused by this artless girl. The confidence which her father exhibited in her command of the English tongue, extending as it did even to matters of business,and the obvious pride he took in it, had tickled him in spite of himself. But when the concierge closed the house-door behind him, it seemed to shut him out from gaiety and good humour, from laughter and lightness of all kinds, for evermore Attor ney though he was, Mr Barlow had a tender conscience, and he reproached himself for having given way even for a few moments to that sense of the ridiculous which is one of the few possessions of man unshared by the lower animals. The tidings he had just received, and of which he had been in search, were, indeed, lull of gloom ; and if he had ventured for some hours to enter tain the glimmer ot ft certain Jiope, they had extinguished it. It was true that he had omitted to show M. Montour the photo graph of Matthew, but the verbal descrip tion be had given him had evidently tallied but too well with the merchant's recollection of the man; whom, moreover, the assumed name of Butt identified beyond doubt with Helston.

And now he was about to be brought face to face with him in his infamy and disgrace; not to know the worst—for the worst lie knew—but to awaken, if possible, in one whom he had once believed to be without reproach, some sense of his own' ignominy, and to suggest, not amendment and repen tance, for they were impossible, but a tardy and. probably partial reparation.

It was curious, considering the whole situation, how much he thought of Matthew per sc, and of the ruin he had brought upon himself as well as others. He had broken the law; he had sinned against morality; and committed, in short, every trespass calculated to awaken indignation in the 'mind of a man of Barlow's character : and yet he was unable to divest himself of a cer tain yearning pity for the man, as well as of a profound regret for his degradation. But of course Sabey and Amy occupied the chief share in his thoughts. What kind of mes sage, he wondered, would he have to give them from this unhappy wretch, and how would he, the bearer of it, be received on his return? This last consideration, all important as it was as respected his own in terests, affected him, perhaps just now the east. The Present loomed so large and

gloomily in front of him that for the moment it shut out the Future.

lie took a fiacre to the Hue dv Simon, but alighted at the comer of the street. He felt a strange disinclination to preciprttc matters, and preferred to pass house by house on foot till he came to the hotel of which he was in search. How would he feel, what would he know, thought be to himself, when he should issue from that door through which ho was about to enter! Which of us has been so fortunate as not* to have pictured to himself the like, ant imagined what the state of our mind will be to-morrow, or the next hour, or the next minute, after some important and perhaps painful ordeal? Have we not ourselves Btood outside our mistress's door, or our,., creditor's, or tbat of some other petty Pro vidence of our fate, with similar feelings'?"' Ay, and but too often with the same sad forebodings (God help us all) that, what soever change may be in store for us, it can hardly be for the better.

It was positively with some sense of re-,, lief, though Mr Barlow had undertaken his journey for no other object than that which seemed to lie immediately before him, that he reflecied that Matthew might not beat the Hotel de fa Fontaine after all. When the reward for his apprehension had been made public was it not probable that he bad changed the address given to the dia mond merchant, and betaken himself to fafer quarters? For though hecohldriot be identified by means of the name he had assumed, he might be so by the jewels themselves. i- ,:

The Hotel de la Fontaine was one of con siderable pretensions, and it struck Mr Barlow's practical mind that if Matthew Helston had resided there over since his coming to Paris, one at least of the Pargiter diamonds must have been dii-posed'of to defray his expenses. That be should have chosen so ambitious a place at all 'was utterly inconsistent witli his old habits of economy, but why ihotild they have re mained to him when every other rule of his life had be n negatived and overturned ?

The courtyard of the inn was open to the street, and over tho left band of the gate was the porter's lodge, to which Mr Barlow at last advanced with a determined step and inquired for Mr Butt. There was a board in the lodge containing the names of ■ the occupants of the hotel, with a star against those who had passed the gate,that„ morning and left their names with the"

concierge.

Mr ilutt, it appeared, had done so, for that official (who could speak English) re plied that Monsieur was not within.

"Do you know when he will return?" inquired Mr Barlow.

The concierge did not know. As a rule Mr Butt left the hotel after breakfast aud did not return' till midday. "Madame, however," he added, " was in as usual." .

To Mr Barlow, albeit far from an imagi-* native man, that "as usual" had a great significance. He read in it—that is, in the fact of ber being usually left alone—a story | of satiety and repentance. Matthew, beH suspected, had already become tired of tb_7 object of his guilty passion, or had failed jj to find in it a Lethebnlm against the stings'. of conscience." " Did Monsieur wish to see Madame?" - ■ The question startled him not, a little, for among all tbe embarrassing positions that had presented themselves to his appre hension he had certainly never contem plated a tete-a-tete with Miss Phoebe.: Mayson. ~ ... .-.-,/ Still, was it not possible that there, had, been a reciprocity of disillusion—that the girl might herself have repented of her .... bargain, and be not indisposed to. release! herself from such ties as bound her to the' runaway? If he could persuade her so to do, it struck Mr Balow—though it must be,\ confessed, with considerable vagueness— that he would be advancing Sabey's in terest. In any case by an interview with; this young woman be might obtain some,. information respecting Matthew's true position. " Yes," he answered, wiih a sudden im pulse, " I will see the lady." j......--,. },•, Whereupon a waiter, was summoned, who* conducted him to Mr Butt's apartments, which were on the third lloor. ' \-)n'.

(To be continued,)

Some New Arithmetic.

A laundress takes twelve shirts and has four stolen from her Hue. How many Bre left and what arc the losers going to do about it? :.;. -

A farmer sold eleven bushels of potatoes, and the product purchased two gallons of whisky at ninety cents per gallon. How much per bushel did he get for his tubers, and where did he keep the jug ? What velocity must a locomotive have to, pick up a deaf man walking on the track and lliog him «o high that six cars pass before he comes down . V

A mother standing at the gate calls to her boy who is exactly sixty-eight feet distant. It takes two minutes and twenty-two seconds for the sound to reach, him. Find from this the velocity with which a woman's vbice travels. , 7

A certain young man walks five-sevenths of a mile for seven nights in a week to see his girl,and after puttingjin 112 nisthts hegets the bounce. How many miles did he hoof it altogther, and how many weeks did it take him to understand that he wasn't wanted 2

Two men agree to build a Avail together, one does four-fifths of the bossing [and the other three-tenths of the work and they finally conclude to pay a man £10 to finish the job. Find the length and height of the wall. A woman arrives at the depot three minu tes ahead of train time. She has to kiss seven persons, say "good-by" to thirteen others.send her love to twenty-two relatives, and see to four parcels. She accomplishes it all, and has forty-one seconds to spare to tell a dear frie.d how to mix seven different ingredients into a mince tpie. How long did it take the train, to reach Chicago?— Detroit Free Press.

A Novel Idea about Insurance.

A thin, cadaverous-looking Teuton entered the oilice of a health insurance company in New York, and in quired,—" Ish te man in vat inshures de people's helts ?"—The agent ; answered, " I attend to that business."--;" "Veil, I vants mine belts inshured. Vot , you sharge ?"—'' Difl'erent prices," answered | the agent; "from three to ten dollars a' year. Pay ten dollars a jrear, and you get ten dollars a week in case of sickness."—

"Veil," said Mynheer, "I vants ten dollars vert. '-The agent inquired his state of health.—" Veil, I ish sick ail the time. I. shust out of bed two or three hours a tay, unt te doctor say he can't do noting morecrootforme."—"lf that's the state of your health,"returned the agent, " we Can't insure it. We only insure persons who 1.10. in good health."—At this Mynheer bristled up in great anger. " You must tink I's a fool. Vot you tink I come pay you ten dollars for indiure my helt yen I vas veil?

The schoolgirls of a Massachusetts school met and organised a society for mutual improvement. The Committee on Kules reported one which forbade the use of slang words. Up spoke a little girl—" Oh, that'a a bully rule— l'll vote for that !",; iyn ; -7 Ji

STAR SATURDAY SUPPLEMENT, JUNE 3 ; 1882

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