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and let loose on the public persons whom they are not quite certain have been restored to the power of self-control. Further on, referring to the work of asylum physicians, he continues: Indeed, I can conceive nothing more sublime and more Christian-like than the nature of their labours; and though there were in former times great instances of cruelty and abuse, my experience, extending over fifty years of the various asylums, private as well as public, is not only eminently favourable to the highest order of intellect, but to the truest and deepest sentiments of humanity towards the poor creatures placed therein.'

VALENTINE STRANGE.

A STORY OF THE PRIMROSE WAY.

CHAPTER XLI.-'MOTHER,' SAID GERARD ON THE EVENING OF HIS RETURN, 'I AM GOING ABROAD.'

NEXT day, Gerard and Hiram were in London. The master stood with a little scrap of newspaper in his hand, on the hearth-rug of a cheerless room in an hotel; and the servant watched his countenance furtively, and drew but little comfort from it. Snow had fallen in the streets, and the sky was leaden and cheerless. The hotel was far-away East, out of Hiram's knowledge of town; and he was all curiosity to know what was afoot, and fear lest the enterprise should be dangerous for Gerard. For Hiram firmly believed that the young fellow had bent himself to have revenge upon the man who had wrecked his life; and though he would willingly have looked on at any such ceremony as a horse-whipping, he feared that no such vengeance would satisfy Gerard.

'Search!'

'Sir?'

'Bring me my overcoat, and wrap yourself up well. It's a bitter day.' More snow, I think, by-and-by,' said Hiram. The statement about the weather included almost every unnecessary word Gerard had spoken to him for at least a week, and he was hungry for conversation. His overture met with no answer, however, and he retired. Might as well valet a dumb man,' reflected Hiram, and be deaf and dumb myself.' Master and man prepared to face the cheerless streets. 'Come with me,' said Gerard; and set out, Hiram following. He walked briskly eastward, pausing at times to make inquiries; and after a journey of perhaps a mile, stopped before a pair of great wooden gates, and rang a bell, the handle of which nestled in the wall, almost hidden by finely-powdered snow. Behind the gates there was a great clanging of hammers on resounding iron; and when the small doorway in the gate was opened, Hiram, looking through, saw a boiler-maker's yard, and men at work there, vigorously. What on airth,' said Hiram to himself, brings the boss to a place like this? Is he going to cure himself with business? Best thing he could do.' Gerard asked a question of the man who opened the gate. His follower was deafened by the noise of hammers, and caught neither it nor the answer; but pursued him across a slushy yard with tracts of melting snow in it, to a counting-house which stood beside a dry dock. Here a grimy personage

received them, and in answer to Gerard's inquiry for the principal, indicated himself. "You have a yacht for sale or hire?' said Gerard. 'Half-a-dozen,' said the grimy principal. 'A steam-yacht, iron-built, Channel Queen?' 'Yes; for sale or hire. Selling price, eight thousand. Hire-crew included-hundred and twenty a month.'

'Can I see her?' asked Gerard. The grimy personage rang a bell; and a grimier than himself answering the summons, he nodded sideways at Gerard, jerked out 'Show Channel Queen,' and disappeared. The new-comer led them into the yard. Snow had begun to fall again, and the place was indescribably dreary. Hiram's thoughts were in keeping with it; but there was one comforting reflection in his mind. 'He means to take me with him,' he thought; 'and he'll have to get over my body to do it when the time comes.' Two minutes' walking brought them to the side of Thames, and the grimy man raised his voice dolefully, and called a wherryman, who stood smoking and watching the dirty tide of the river, a hundred yards away, with his back against a sheltering mass of timber. The man hurried up. Show Channel Queen,' said the grimy guide, and retraced his steps. The wherryman grunted, and unfastened a boat which swung at the shiny and rotting piles upon the edge of the river. Gerard and Hiram seated themselves, and the man pulled across the river.

'Do you know the Channel Queen?' asked Gerard as they went.

'Know her,' said the boatman, with a gratuitous execration; why shouldn't I know her?' 'Is she a fast boat?'

'Fast? Ay; she's fast enough. There she is. Look at her. Did y'ever see a boat with them lines on her as wasn't fast? Not you. Nor me neither. Screw, she is. Engines is a bit too powerful. Jolts her like, when you drives her hard, her engines does. 'Eadachy sort of craft to travel in; but'-with other verbal gratuities-'can't she walk!'

'Can't I go on board her?' asked Gerard. 'Who said you couldn't?' inquired the man ungraciously; and pulling nearer, caught a hanging chain. "Up you get,' he said with a grin; ‘nobody's a-hindering of you, mister.' Gerard seized the chain, and with some damage to his gloves, went up hand over hand, and swung on to the deck. Tain't the first time he's been aboard a yacht, I know,' said the boatman, turning on Hiram. Navy, maybe; eh, mister?' Hiram made no answer, but listened to the hollow footsteps of his master on the deck, until he lost them. After a pause of perhaps five minutes, Gerard came to the rail of the vessel and called him: 'Come up here, Search.'

Hiram went up the shallow side like an exaggerated monkey, and the boatman looked after him. Reg'lar old salts the pair of 'em,' he said; and having knocked the still burning ashes of his pipe into the brim of his hat, nursed them carefully from the wind whilst he refilled, tilted them back again, and smoked on contented.

'Do you know anything about this kind of thing, Search?' asked Gerard, stamping a foot on the deck.

'I've knocked about 'em a bit,' said Hiram.

'I was stoker aboard one o' the Messagerie vessels for a year; an' steward's man aboard an Atlantic steamer for three v'y'ges. It stands to reason I looked about a bit; but I ain't a connysure.Hello, what's that?' A head appearing above deck startled the usually immovable Hiram.

'Man cleaning engines,' said Gerard, who had caught the infection for that verbal economy which seemed to live about the Channel Queen. 'Come and look at her.'

They went over the little vessel together, Hiram making observations here and there, Gerard dumb again. When they had inspected every part of her, they left, and were pulled back across the river; and the wherryman, richer by half-a-crown, returned to his sheltering heap of timber. Gerard led the way to the office, and entering, said briefly: 'I can have Channel Queen examined, I suppose?'

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'When you like.'

When can she sail, if I take her?'

'When you I've got crew aboard and fires up.'
'Do you provision crew, if I hire her?'
'No; you do.'

'Good-morning,' said Gerard.

'Good-morning,' replied the grimy man, and shot away again.

Away once more plodded master and servant through the miry streets, the former inquiring here and there as before. This time their wanderings ended in an office, where, for the consideration of a ten-pound note, a gentleman undertook to examine the Channel Queen and to report upon her seaworthiness and general capacity. Next Hiram was sent off in one direction with orders for stores, to be held in readiness for immediate delivery; whilst Gerard went another way on a like errand; and so the whole day passed busily. The next day was dull and idle; but on the next a perfectly satisfactory report of the yacht having reached him, Gerard hired her for six months, paid a deposit, left references, and in great haste travelled homewards. During all this time, Hiram had felt quite clear about his master's purpose, but had puzzled himself a good deal to divine the reason which had set him so suddenly upon it, after having rested quiescent for more than half a year. The explanation came, by an unlooked-for source.

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going, and she had already framed the words in which to present her question; but he fixed his eyes upon her in a way which seemed at once to anticipate inquiry and refuse an answer. She would not have felt that, but for the suspicion which filled her thoughts. He was going to seek out Val Strange-perhaps to challenge him to a duel in one of those foreign countries in which Val made his shifting home. How could she be sure of this? Not by interrogating Gerard, who would assuredly return no answer. Perhaps by questioning Hiram. She resolved to question Hiram. Milly had a little bower of a sittingroom-her own-in which in happier times she had been wont to entertain her friends; the scene of many a girlish confidence and frolic. Meeting Hiram in the corridor outside, she summoned him to this apartment.

'Do you know that Mr Gerard is going abroad?' she asked.

'I believe he is, miss,' responded Hiram. 'Do you know where he is going?' 'Well, I can't truthfully say I do,' he answered.

she

'Do you know why he is going?' demanded. There was an anxiety in her manner which Hiram fully shared. He seemed to see ahead a worse trouble than had yet fallen upon the House; and though he was but newly in its service, there was no man who ate the bread of the Lumbys who was more devoted to them than he.

'Wall, miss,' he returned tentatively, 'I am not in Mr Gerard's confidence, up to now.'

Her woman's wit and native penetration told her that his suspicions clashed with hers. 'Mr Search,' she said, standing before him with pale face and clasped petitionary hands, may I trust you?' She did not think of her own attitude, or of the appeal in her voice; but taken together with his own fears, they touched Hiram profoundly.

'Miss,' he said, 'you may safely trust me with your life.'

"You know the whole miserable story of your master and-Mr Strange?'-He inclined his head gravely.-'I have heard,' she went on, the circumstances which induced my cousin to take you into his service'-Hiram waved a deprecatory hand at that allusion, and his sallow cheek flushed a little and I believe you are attached to him.'

"That is so, miss,' said Hiram with preternatural gravity.

'At that wretched time,' said Milly, 'one of our fears was that Mr Gerard would attempt some terrible revenge upon Mr Strange.' 'That was my idea tew,' he answered.

'Mother,' said Gerard on the evening of his return, I am going abroad.' He had always been fairly accustomed to his own way; his father's 'Very well, my lad,' having been ready in answer to most of his proposals; and latterly nobody had questioned his comings and goings. 'Not for long, I hope?' said Mrs Lumby. 'No,' said Gerard; probably not for long.' His mother would not enter any protest against his going, but it cost her a pang for all that. Gerard's manner was not encouraging to hope, and she believed that he was but going away to brood above his misery; but he was so hard and stern of late, that she did not dare to venture upon any dissuasion. Milly was bolder. 'Where are you going, Gerard?' she asked. 'There is a reason,' said Milly in response. 'Where fate leads me,' he answered with a 'Mr Strange and his wife are living apart from pallid smile.

'You are uncertain?'

a

'And now the same fear returns,' she said with
face of pallor.
I should go
He's kept

'Miss,' said Hiram, 'excuse me.
with you, if it wa'n't for one thing.
as quiet as a winter dormouse for half a year.
Why should he fire up now, without anything to
set a light to him?'

each other.'

'He knows that?' inquired Hiram. 'He knows it,' she returned. 'Mr Strange is It was in her mind to ask him why he was sailing from place to place in the Levant, and

'At present; yes.'

his wife is living at Naples.' At that news, a sudden certainty shot into Hiram's mind, and declared itself so plainly in his face that Milly saw it at a glance. She made a step towards him. 'What do you know?'

"There air circumstances,' said Hiram, with deliberative slowness, when the or'nary rules of honourable conduct must be set on one side. I think this is one of 'em. I ain't pledged to silence, but that's no matter. Has Mr Gerard Lumby told you, miss, that he's hired anything in London city, lately?'

'No,' she answered, half bewildered. 'Well, he has.' He paused again. -a yacht; and he's goin' to sail in her '————

He's hired

In pursuit of Valentine Strange!' she cried. 'Oh, Mr Search, this must be prevented. Think,' she said, twining her hands together, of the misery it will bring upon us all-his mother, his father, all who value him.'

'I'm afraid,' said Hiram, deeply moved by her distress, and sharing in it, 'it'll be about as useful to try and turn him as it would if he was St Paul's Cathedral.'

'Have you spoken to him?' she asked.-He shook his head sadly.-'Will you?'

"It ain't any use me speakin' to him,' he responded mournfully. No, miss. I might as well throw stones at the Solar System. He stood despondently for a moment, and then added, but with no great hopefulness: You might try him.'

I will try him,' she answered, and left Hiram standing there.

His large dark eyes and sallow features were full of mourning. Tain't a spark and out again with the boss,' he said sadly. Slow, steady goes the bellows all the time, and he's white-hot to the core. I know the sort. It's British. And an uncommon ugly sort it is to have agen you. Yes, sir.' Then with a sudden change of face and figure, he said: 'Hiram, maybe you'll be wanted yet. Mark my words, young man, and be on the spot when you air wanted. When the time comes, Hiram, you will be wanted-real bad.'

THE TARBERT SHIP-CANAL.

BY CUTHBERT BEDE.

CUTTING an isthmus and converting it to a shipcanal so as to be a highway for commerce, is a kind of engineering work for which the present century will be remarkable in the annals of history.

By the Suez Canal, M. de Lesseps united the Red and Mediterranean seas; General Turr is cutting the Isthmus of Corinth for the commerce of the Levant; and the Isthmus of Panama may perhaps be canalled after the same fashion. Twelve years ago, the legislature of Massachusetts proposed to make a similar canal, to save vessels passing round the stormy coast of Cape Cod. It is now proposed to do the same with the isthmus of Tarbert, which connects the peninsula of Cantire with Argyllshire, and thus shorten the journey from the Clyde to the north-west of Scotland, and also save the rough voyage round the Mull of Cantire. It is also proposed to do for the Irwell at Manchester what was done for the Clyde at Glasgow-namely, to deepen it so as

to admit the tide, and thus convert Manchester into a seaport town.

The meeting at Glasgow held, in July last, to consider the scheme of the projected Tarbert Canal, was presided over by the Duke of Argyll, and received the warmest and most influential support. The Canal as proposed will be about two miles in length, with a breadth of fifty-six feet, and a depth of eighteen feet at low-water, and will thus be available for the largest vessel at present capable of navigating the Western Loch. It will save forty-five miles to vessels bound from the Clyde to the north via the Sound of Jura, and forty miles to those proceeding vid the Sound of Islay; and whereas some sixty miles of the present route round the Mull of Cantire-namely, from Pladda to Gigha-is often stormy and dangerous, this risk will be entirely avoided. Glasgow and the other ports of the Firth of Clyde carry on a large trade with the north and northwest of Scotland, the annual clearances in steamers alone amounting at present to nearly five hundred thousand tons, almost all of which may be expected to use the Canal. Weather-bound sailingvessels will doubtless also avail themselves of it; and with a transit charge of sixpence per ton, a clear revenue of twelve thousand pounds a year may fairly be expected. The cost of the undertaking is still a matter of uncertainty, but two hundred thousand pounds is given as the maximum; and, as the enterprise has met with ready support, an influential Committee elected, an engineer appointed, the preliminary details adjusted, and most of the money subscribed, there seems little doubt that in a year or two the Tarbert Ship-canal will be an accomplished fact.

sea.

Those who have travelled by those splendid steamers the Iona or Columba from_the Clyde en route to Oban, will remember Tarbert on Loch Fyne as being the last place of_call before the steamer reaches Ardrishaig. Few, however, may be aware that this place of call is within half-an-hour's walking distance of an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. The narrow isthmus of Tarbert is, in fact, only sixteen hundred yards from high-water mark on the Eastern Loch (Loch Fyne) to high-water mark on the Western Loch (Atlantic), and its highest point is only forty-seven feet above the The length of the peninsula of Cantire is forty miles, with a breadth from ten to twelve miles; and the southern extremity, or Mull of Cantire, is only twelve miles from the Irish coast. The steamers that sail from Glasgow to the Western Isles have to encounter the stormy and perilous passage round the dreaded Mull, causing great risk and loss of time, all which, as we have already hinted, would be obviated by the ship-canal at Tarbert. East Loch Tarbert, which opens on to Loch Fyne, is distant fortyfour miles from Greenock. Its small harbour, about a mile in length, is very commodious and landlocked, having at its farther end the town of Tarbert, with large quays, so that vessels can approach the shore in deep water. At present, horsed vehicles take passengers and goods from the steamer in the East Loch, to the pier at the head of the West Loch, where the Islay steamer will convey them to Port Ellen. The West Loch is an arm of the Atlantic, eleven

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Journal

miles in length, and about a mile in width, with a clear channel nearly to its head, for vessels drawing eighteen feet of water. The island of Gigha protects the entrance of the Loch from south-west gales; and the silvan scenery of this Loch is in fine contrast to the rugged rocks of the Eastern Loch.

The wonder is that the Tarbert Ship-canal was not made many years ago, its advantages being so obvious, and its construction having been demonstrated to be both practicable and paying. The low ground to be cut through consists chiefly of micaceous schist covered with moss; and as the water on each side is landlocked and sheltered, the operations in cutting the canal will not be subjected to risk from tidal waves. The engineering difficulties are thus by no means formidable. A century and a quarter ago, the project for a ship-canal at this place was seriously debated. The celebrated James Watt was requested to examine and report upon the project; and, on December 21, 1771, he sent in a statement to the Commissioners of Highland Roads and Bridges, giving his views of the feasibility of the undertaking, and handing in two estimates, the one for a canal sixteen feet deep at neap-tides high-water, to cost-according to the curiously minute estimates furnished-one hundred and twenty thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine pounds nine shillings and fivepence; the other for a canal twelve feet deep, to cost seventy-three thousand eight hundred and forty-nine pounds two shillings and ninepence. Neither of these plans was accepted; but, through the powerful influence of John, Duke of Argyll, and the Marquis of Breadalbane, the shallow Crinan Canal, farther north, was commenced in 1793 by Sir John Rennie, assisted by Captain Joseph Huddart.

The non-eligibility of the Crinan Canal, as a means of transit for vessels of deep draught, redirected attention to the isthmus of Tarbert; and, in 1846, an Act of Parliament was obtained by a joint-stock Company to make a ship-canal at Tarbert, that should be fifty-six feet wide, and have a depth of eighteen feet at low-water. Mr Gibb, of Aberdeen, was the engineer; and he estimated the expense at one hundred and fortyseven thousand nine hundred and fifty pounds; which included the deepening of the West Loch, the improvement of the Eastern Harbour, and the erection of two lighthouses. The Company, however, was dissolved; and Mr Gibb's plans were not carried out. In the following year, 1847, Captain Sir Edward Belcher, R.N., and Lieut.-colonel P. Yule, R.E., were specially appointed by government to examine and report on the merits of the proposed Canal, and their opinions were most favourable to the project. Lieut.-colonel Yule's estimate of the expense was a little over one hundred thousand pounds sterling; and he concluded his Report with these words: When a work of this nature, formed in a rock by mere force of labour, is once completed, it will be liable to no accidents; it will not require science to execute it, nor much money to keep it up; the lock-gates and their pliers alone will be liable to deterioration by time. Sir Edward Belcher afforded most valuable testimony to the great importance of the Tarbert Canal in the naval defence of Great Britain. He said: 'In a military point of view,

this channel affords most important advantages to the naval defence of the western ports of Scotland. In the event of war, some naval rendezvous, as well as coal depôt, must_be formed in the neighbourhood of the Clyde. The enemy would, doubtless, have cruisers watching the Glasgow, as well as the Irish trade. We will suppose the enemy's cruisers caught by a westerly gale between Ireland and the Mull of Cantire, and that the fact of his being there is conveyed to our cruisers in the Clyde; before any of our steamers could reach or pass the Mull of Cantire, even if she could face the gale as well as the sea, she might, by adopting the Tarbert Channel, pass with ease, in smooth water, to the southern point of Islay, in a state of efficiency, seek the enemy to leeward, and prevent escape; or, should her services be required on the northern coast of Ireland, her arrival by this route would be certain, when it might be impolitic, if not impossible, to attempt it from the Clyde direct.'

In the Report of the Tidal Harbours Commission for 1847, the advantages to be derived from the Tarbert Ship-canal are summed up in most favourable terms. "There may be some difficulty arising from the difference of the levels of the tide on the east and west sides of the peninsula, said to amount at times to twelve feet, which it is proposed to guard against by placing a pair of flood-gates at each end; but it is to be hoped, when the work comes to be carried out, no practical obstacle will be found in making a thorough open cut, and that it will be wide enough and deep enough to admit, at all times of the tide, the largest war-steamer or the heaviest merchant-vessel, that either can now, or will in future, ascend the Clyde to Glasgow Quay. In the eastern part of Scotland, large sums of public money have been expended upon roads and bridges; and the testimony of all observant persons is unanimous as to the advance in civilisation, in comfort, and in wealth that has immediately followed in the wake of such improvements. But in the western districts of Scotland, and especially in the county of Argyll, the rivers, lakes, and sea are now the means of intercourse; and the very barrier that mainly prevented communication in the days of our fathers, has proved to be the great highway in our own. Steamboats are at once the heralds and the cause of every kind of improvement in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Independent, then, of the advantages of such a communication in a military point of view, every facility that can be given to uninterrupted intercourse, and thereby to the spread of civilisation, cannot but be hailed as a national benefit.'

The project of the Tarbert Ship-canal, however, again slumbered for several years; till 1861, when Mr John Ramsay, of Port Ellen, Islay, read a paper before the British Association on 'The Proposed Canal at Loch Tarbert, Argyllshire.' He spoke of it as being advantageous from every point of view; and said that it would, in effect, bring the numerous western islands and all the west coast of Scotland north of Cantire, sixty miles nearer to the markets to which all their produce is conveyed, besides avoiding a voyage round one of the most dangerous headlands, through the most

tempestuous sea which can be encountered anywhere on the coast of Great Britain.' A meeting of West Highland proprietors was held at Salen, in Mull, on July 19, 1861, when this revived project of the Tarbert Canal was most favourably discussed. Nothing practical, however, came of the meeting. A railway was also projected to cross the isthmus; but this also has not been carried out, though telegraph wires were taken across some fifteen years ago.

It does not appear, therefore, from the various testimonies here quoted, that there would be any special practical difficulty to be surmounted in cutting a ship-canal through the narrow Tarbert isthmus, and thus bringing the Clyde into an easier, shorter, and safer connection with the north-west of Scotland than can now be obtained by 'rounding wild Cantire. Those words from The Lord of the Isles, remind us of Bruce's boat-carrying over the Tarbert isthmus, in which he imitated Magnus Barefoot, and in which example he has been followed by many herring-fishers, who have hauled their boats over the dry land to escape the perils by water at the Mull. In fact, by the aid of laying down poles for their keels to pass over, various craft have been dragged across the isthmus.

Let us hope that the Tarbert Ship-canal will speedily pass from the shadowy realms of project into an actual and accomplished fact.

MY NEW FRIEND.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS.-CHAPTER III.

As the reader may suppose, I was in feverish expectation of a summons to wait upon Messrs Bunner, Wreggs, and Carrowble-the firm for which Mr Scate was acting-hour by hour, almost minute by minute; but the business took a very different turn. Mr Scate called one day, out of the time at which he usually paid his visits, which was generally in the evening, and said that the firm would not trouble me to call; they were quite satisfied, he said, with what they had heard from him; and not caring to multiply the agents with whom they dealt directly, preferred to consider my transactions as a branch of his own. This being the case, he would at once, if I were agreeable, commence our joint work by either seeing people at my house himself, or making appointments to which I should attend.

I could have no possible objection to this, beyond the grave one that I had no experience in buying and selling, and did not even know what kind of goods I was expected to examine. To all this he had conclusive answers. A man 'with his head screwed on the right way,' as mine was, would have no difficulty in picking up such knowledge; while at first he would see everything right for me, and when he was obliged to be away, would leave me instructions how far to go in any purchase. But there! it was making mountains of molehills to talk in that strain. Several interviews of this kind took place; and I could not help thinking that Scate took care never to hold them in the presence of Mr Chelps; and I sometimes actually thought he must lie in wait in the neighbourhood to see the old gentleman go out, so promptly did he look in directly afterwards.

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But Mr Chelps was so interested in the matter, so anxious for actual work to begin, he said, that he generally extracted a pretty full account from me; besides holding long conversations on his own prospective share with Mr Scate.

Among other preparations for the agency, Mr Scate had some office furniture brought in; so that, what with a massive table and desk, half-adozen heavy chairs, with various racks and shelves fitted on the walls, my front parlour assumed quite a solid, banking, or life-assurance aspect, which met the approval not only of Mr Scate, but of Mr Chelps.

The first transaction which was completed in the new office, took place very suddenly-to me; and was surprising by its brevity and various special features, common perhaps to my novel business, but altogether different from my previous experience. It was conducted thus. At twilight one evening, only a few days after the subject was first broached, for Mr Scate would lose no time in the matter, he came in, and repaired to the office. He had not been there five minutes, when a man knocked at our door and asked for him. It so happened that I opened the door to this person, who, in the few words he spoke, seemed to have an unpleasantly furtive way with him; and although not disguised in any particular manner, his hat was so slouched over his brows, and the collar of his coat so pulled up, that it was impossible to distinguish his features clearly. I showed him into the office, and went down-stairs. As I did so, I thought for an instant that I caught sight of Mr Chelps's face, in the dusky gloom of the staircase, peering over the banisters. I paused to look again; but no one was there, and I went on.

In a few minutes Mr Scate called down the

speaking-tube which he had caused to be carried from the office to our sitting-room, and asked me to step up. I complied, and found him with the stranger I had previously admitted; but their figures were barely discernible, as they were sitting without a light, and the twilight had now almost changed to darkness. I naturally noticed this, and offered to procure a light.

'No, thank ye,' returned Mr Scate. Our business is finished, and I am going out directly. I wished to introduce you to this gentleman, who will be here again to-morrow, or the next night, and will transact some business with you. Mra-a-Mr'

'Jerry Wilkins, you know,' said the other, as Scate hesitated.

'To be sure!-of course!' exclaimed the latter. 'Mr Wilkins, this is our new agent, Mr Matley, who will carry on the business at this branch for the present; so you will know who to ask for when I am not here.'

'Yes; I shall know him,' returned the stranger. His words were not a direct reply to Mr Scate's remark, and although I could scarcely see him in the darkness, I felt he was eyeing me narrowly. However, there was little time for this or anything more, as Scate rose from his seat, and in a few words intimated that our business was concluded.

I opened the door for them, and they went out, not exactly together, for Mr Wilkins left at once, while Scate lingered for a couple of minutes on the threshold with me, although he

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