s, his coat thrown across one
shoulder, the darned cuffs drooping behind--this man shufflingly rose,
and, with a pace that seemed the lingering memento of the lock-step of
convicts, went up for a duly-qualified claimant.

"Poor wounded huzzar!" sighed the herb-doctor, and dropping the money
into the man's clam-shell of a hand turned and departed.

The recipient of the alms was about moving after, when the auburn-haired
gentleman staid him: "Don't be frightened, you; but I want to see those
coins. Yes, yes; good silver, good silver. There, take them again, and
while you are about it, go bandage the rest of yourself behind
something. D'ye hear? Consider yourself, wholly, the scar of a nose, and
be off with yourself."

Being of a forgiving nature, or else from emotion not daring to trust
his voice, the man silently, but not without some precipitancy,
withdrew.

"Strange," said the auburn-haired gentleman, returning to his friend,
"the money was good money."

"Aye, and where your fine knavery now? Knavery to devote the half of
one's receipts to charity? He's a fool I say again."

"Others might call him an original genius."

"Yes, being original in his folly. Genius? His genius is a cracked pate,
and, as this age goes, not much originality about that."

"May he not be knave, fool, and genius altogether?"

"I beg pardon," here said a third person with a gossiping expression who
had been listening, "but you are somewhat puzzled by this man, and well
you may be."

"Do you know anything about him?" asked the hooked-nosed gentleman.

"No, but I suspect him for something."

"Suspicion. We want knowledge."

"Well, suspect first and know next. True knowledge comes but by
suspicion or revelation. That's my maxim."

"And yet," said the auburn-haired gentleman, "since a wise man will keep
even some certainties to himself, much more some suspicions, at least he
will at all events so do till they ripen into knowledge."

"Do you hear that about the wise man?" said the hook-nosed gentleman,
turning upon the new comer. "Now what is it you suspect of this fellow?"

"I shrewdly suspect him," was the eager response, "for one of those
Jesuit emissaries prowling all over our country. The better to
accomplish their secret designs, they assume, at times, I am told, the
most singular masques; sometimes, in appearance, the absurdest."

This, though indeed for some reason causing a droll smile upon the face
of the hook-nosed gent